Abstract
WE have shown1 that a light curve similar to that of the quasi-stellar source 3C 273 can be generated by a superposition of unit light curves occurring at random times. Gudzenko, Ozernoy and Chertoprud2 have argued (1) that the distribution of the observed luminosities should be expected to be Gaussian on our model, and (2) that the observed distribution is not Gaussian, so that the luminosity curve cannot be regarded as the superposition of random events. The purpose of this communication is to question the validity of both arguments and to show that the luminosity record may still be considered to be of random origin.
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References
Manwell, T., and Simon, M., Nature, 212, 1224 (1966).
Gudzenko, L. I., Ozernoy, L. M., and Chertoprud, V. E., Nature, 215, 605 (1967).
Davenport, W. B., and Root, W. L., An Introduction to the Theory of Random Signals and Noise (McGraw–Hill Book Co., NY, 1958).
Cramer, H., Mathematical Methods of Statistics (Princeton, 1946).
Papoulis, A., Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes (McGraw-Hill Book Co., NY, 1965).
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MANWELL, T., SIMON, M. Are the Optical Luminosity Fluctuations of 3C 273 Random?. Nature 217, 931 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1038/217931a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/217931a0
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