Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
The main purpose of the paper is to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the almost sure boundedness of (Sn – αn)/B(n), where Sn = X1 + X2 + … + XmXi being independent and identically distributed random variables, and αnand B(n) being centering and norming constants. The conditions take the form of the convergence or divergence of a series of a geometric subsequence of the sequence P(Sn − αn > a B(n)), where a is a constant. The theorem is distinguished from previous similar results by the comparative weakness of the subsidiary conditions and the simplicity of the calculations. As an application, a law of the iterated logarithm general enough to include a result of Feller is derived.