Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2011 / ii / Paper 3 / 25K / i / Solution

For independent random variables $X_1,X_2,\dots$, let ${\mathcal{F}}_n=\sigma (X_1,\dots ,X_n)$, $\mathcal{F}=\sigma (X_1,X_2,\dots )$, and let the tail sigma-algebra be $\mathcal{T}={\bigcap }_n\sigma (X_{n+1},X_{n+2},\dots )$. Kolmogorov zero-one law states that every $A\in \mathcal{T}$ has probability zero or one.

Such an event is independent of each ${\mathcal{F}}_n$ by independence of the variables. The collection of events $B\in \mathcal{F}$ satisfying $\mathbb{P}(A\cap B)=\mathbb{P}(A)\mathbb{P}(B)$ is a Dynkin system: it contains the whole space and is closed under complements and disjoint countable unions. It contains the pi-system ${\bigcup }_n{\mathcal{F}}_n$, which generates $\mathcal{F}$. The pi-lambda theorem therefore makes $A$ independent of all of $\mathcal{F}$. Since $A$ itself belongs to $\mathcal{F}$,