Discrete Distributions and Their Limit Theorems in the Surreal Numbers

Abstract

We extend the discrete uniform, hypergeometric and binomial distributions to the surreal numbers, allowing infinitely many outcomes, chips and trials. A uniform distribution on ℕ gives each outcome probability 1/ω; on the eventually periodic sets we define the needed sizes explicitly, obtaining a probability that is regular and strictly monotone. For an urn with infinitely many chips and finitely many draws, the hypergeometric distribution is within an infinitesimal of the binomial. With infinitely many trials, and under a hypothesis on factorials of omnific integers that we show can be satisfied, we prove a surreal de~Moivre--Laplace theorem, and we show that the hypergeometric distribution with infinitely many draws is locally normal with a finite-population correction. Near its center, it is relatively close to the binomial distribution if and only if the sampling fraction is infinitesimal, an exact form of a familiar rule of thumb. For rare successes we prove, without any hypothesis on factorials, a surreal Poisson limit theorem and describe urns with finitely many red chips, where the binomial approximation fails beyond the first success.

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BibTeX RIS

BibTeX

@misc{harris2026discrete,
  title = {{Discrete Distributions and Their Limit Theorems in the Surreal Numbers}},
  author = {John Harris},
  howpublished = {arXiv},
  year = {2026},
  month = nov,
  doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.11591},
  eprint = {2611.11591},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.11591},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}

RIS

TY  - UNPB
TI  - Discrete Distributions and Their Limit Theorems in the Surreal Numbers
AU  - John Harris
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/11/08
PB  - arXiv
DO  - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.11591
UR  - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.11591
AB  - We extend the discrete uniform, hypergeometric and binomial distributions to the surreal numbers, allowing infinitely many outcomes, chips and trials. A uniform distribution on ℕ gives each outcome probability 1/ω; on the eventually periodic sets we define the needed sizes explicitly, obtaining a probability that is regular and strictly monotone. For an urn with infinitely many chips and finitely many draws, the hypergeometric distribution is within an infinitesimal of the binomial. With infinitely many trials, and under a hypothesis on factorials of omnific integers that we show can be satisfied, we prove a surreal de~Moivre--Laplace theorem, and we show that the hypergeometric distribution with infinitely many draws is locally normal with a finite-population correction. Near its center, it is relatively close to the binomial distribution if and only if the sampling fraction is infinitesimal, an exact form of a familiar rule of thumb. For rare successes we prove, without any hypothesis on factorials, a surreal Poisson limit theorem and describe urns with finitely many red chips, where the binomial approximation fails beyond the first success.
ER  -

Abstract

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