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My question is similar to this one but for rectangles instead of lines.

Suppose I have a rectangle with sides of length $L_w$ and $L_h$. What is the average distance between two uniformly-distributed random points inside the rectangle, and why?

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    Related: http://stats.stackexchange.com/q/22488/29702012-10-07

1 Answers 1

15

The answer, given here and here, is

$ \frac1{15} \left( \frac{L_w^3}{L_h^2}+\frac{L_h^3}{L_w^2}+d \left( 3-\frac{L_w^2}{L_h^2}-\frac{L_h^2}{L_w^2} \right) +\frac52 \left( \frac{L_h^2}{L_w}\log\frac{L_w+d}{L_h}+\frac{L_w^2}{L_h}\log\frac{L_h+d}{L_w} \right) \right)\;, $

where $d=\sqrt{L_w^2+L_h^2}$.

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    The famous book "Integral geometry and geometric probability" of Santalo is available on line at (https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183539854).2017-10-27