Consistent probability distributions on finite collections of coordinates in standard Borel spaces determine a unique probability measure on the product sigma-algebra. Consistency means that discarding coordinates by marginalization agrees with the law already assigned to the smaller collection, and relabeling coordinates relabels the law. The theorem turns finite recipes into a complete stochastic process. In particular, products of one fixed probability distribution construct an independent and identically distributed sequence; putting one common random variable in every coordinate constructs the perfectly shared process above. The theorem supplies a law on the coordinate space, but does not by itself ensure continuous sample paths.

Articles by others on the same topic (1)