## 4.5 Exercises

### 4.5.1 Rejection sampling of Gaussian random variables

This exercise is on rejection sampling from the Gaussian distribution by using the Laplace distribution as an envelope. Recall that the Laplace distribution has density $g(x) = \frac{1}{2} e^{-|x|}$ for $$x \in \mathbb{R}$$.

Note that if $$X$$ and $$Y$$ are independent and exponentially distributed with mean one, then $$X - Y$$ has a Laplace distribution. This gives a way to easily sample from the Laplace distribution.

Exercise 4.1 Implement rejection sampling from the standard Gaussian distribution with density $f(x) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}} e^{- x^2 / 2}$ by simulating Laplace random variables as differences of exponentially distributed random variables. Test the implementation by computing the variance of the Gaussian distribution as an MC estimate and by comparing directly with the Gaussian distribution using histograms and QQ-plots.

Exercise 4.2 Implement simulation from the Laplace distribution by transforming a uniform random variable by the inverse distribution function. Use this method together with the rejection sampler you implemented in Exercise 4.1

Note: The Laplace distribution can be seen as a simple version of the adaptive envelopes suggested in Section 4.4.