random walk

noun

: a process (such as Brownian motion or genetic drift) consisting of a sequence of steps (such as movements or changes in gene frequency) each of whose characteristics (such as magnitude and direction) is determined by chance

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The researchers find that the outcome of a random walk through such a network is highly lumpable. —

Philip Ball, WIRED, 21 July 2024 One hundred primary sampling units were randomly selected, with households selected via random walk and respondents selected via the last-birthday method. —

Gary Langer, ABC News, 4 Oct. 2024 One is a version of a random walk, where some agent wanders around haphazardly in a network that could represent, for example, the streets of a city. —

Quanta Magazine, 10 June 2024 Among other things, this understanding will help computer scientists to prioritize among different random sampling techniques — to figure out when the most basic random walk is best, and when a more sophisticated but computationally expensive algorithm will perform better. —

Quanta Magazine, 1 Mar. 2021 See all Example Sentences for random walk