Record breaking. Consider keeping track of the world record for some quantity x, say earthquake magnitude, or longjump distances jumped at world championships. If we assume that attempts to break the record take place at a steady rate, and if we assume that the underlying probability distribution of the outcome x, P(x), is not changing - an assumption that I think is unlikely to be true in the case of sports endeavours, but an interesting assumption to consider nonetheless - and assuming no knowledge at all about P(x), what can be predicted about successive intervals between the dates when records are broken?