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Expected perimeter of a triangle inscribed at random

Question

Pick three points AA, BB, CC independently and uniformly on the unit circle. The expected perimeter of triangle ABCABC can be written as aπ\tfrac{a}{\pi} with aa rational. What is aa?

Short answer

a=12a=12. The three sides have the same distribution, so the expected perimeter is three times the expected chord length. With central angle Θ∼Unif(0,2π)\Theta\sim\text{Unif}(0,2\pi) the chord is 2sin⁡(Θ/2)2\sin(\Theta/2), whose mean is 4π\tfrac{4}{\pi}, so the perimeter averages 12π\tfrac{12}{\pi}.

Adapted from QuantQuestions.io; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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