What is the difference between a random vector and a stochastic process?

Solution 1:

A random vector is a generalization of a single random variables to many. A stochastic process is a sequence of random variables, or a sequence of random vectors (and then you have a vector-stochastic process).

When we use the concept of a stochastic process to model events that evolve through time, then there is no way you should be able to confuse them: Taking a certain sub-sequence of the stochastic process does not form a "random vector" -because with time as the framework, for a collection of random variables to form a random vector, they must all "happen" in the same time period (they must have the same time index). Index-wise, the specific position of each random variable in a random vector is arbitrary - but position is critically defining in a time-stochastic process.

Things may get a bit blurry when the stochastic process is used to model random variables that do not have different time indices (e.g. cross-sectional r.v.'s). It is not common to think of such collections of r.v.'s as "stochastic processes", but it is perfectly legitimate. Here, the index may not be critical in the case of the SP also, so one may think "what is the difference if I call this collection a stochastic process or a random vector?" Well, the basic difference is that a stochastic process has an open dimension - you can think of "adding" rv's to the sequence, and you will still have the "same" SP, just with more realizations. A "random vector" has a fixed dimension, and if you add one r.v. to it, you get a different random vector.