Independent and identically distributed random variables
In probability theory and statistics, a sequence or other collection of random variables is independent and identically distributed (i.i.d. or iid or IID) if each random variable has the same probability distribution as the others and all are mutually independent. Identically distributed, on its own, is often abbreviated ID. For uniformity, as both are discussed—and in widespread use—this article uses the visually cleaner IID in preference to the more prevalent convention i.i.d.