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Math 464 – Fall
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3 – Homework 10
1. We flip a fair coin until we get 100 heads. Use the central limit theorem
to find (approximately) the probabilities that it will take at least
2
00,210,
220 and 300 flips. Hint: Let X be the number of flips to get the 100 heads.
Write X as a sum of 100 i.i.d. random variables.
2. Let Z1, Z2, · · · Zn be independent, each having the standard normal dis-
tribution. Let
Qn =
n
∑
i=1
Z
2
i
The distribution of Qn is called the chi-squared distribution with n degrees
of freedom. It is an important distribution in statistics. When n is large we
can use the central limit theorem to approximate it.
(a) Use the central limit theorem to find (approximately)
P(80 ≤ Q100 ≤ 120) (1)
(b) In a previous homework you showed that the distribution of Q1 = Z
2
1
is
a gamma distribution. Use this to show that the distribution of Qn is also a
gamma distribution and find the parameters of the gamma distribution.
(c) (Optional) Use software like R and your answer to (b) to compute that
probability in (a) exactly.
3. Let X and Y be continuous random variables with joint pdf
f(x, y) =
{
e−y, if 0 < x < y 0 otherwise
(2)
Find E[X|Y = y] and E[Y |X = x].
4. Our computer has two random number generators. One will return a
random number that is uniformly distributed on [0, 1]. The other will return
a random number with the exponential distribution with parameter λ. (You
specify λ when you call the generator.) We generate a random number X by
the following two stage process. First, we call the uniform generator and let
λ be the number it returns. Then we call the exponential generator using λ
as the parameter. X is the number returned by the exponential generator.
(a) Find E[X].
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(b) Find the pdf of X.
5. A statistician want to estimate the mean age of the population in the US.
Let X be the age of a randomly selected person in the US.
(a) Make a crude estimate of the variance of X using just your common
sense.
(b) She wants to estimate the mean of X within one year with a 99.9%
confidence interval. In other words, she wants the 99.9% confidence interval
to have a width of 2 years. How many people does she need to sample? (Of
course, your answer will depend on your estimate in part (a).)
6. We roll a six-sided die 100 times. Let X be the sum of the rolls. (So X
ranges from 100 to 600.) The central limit theorem says that X is approxi-
mately normal. The goal of this problem is to see this in a simulation.
(a) Find analytically the mean and variance of X.
(b) Write a program (in R or whatever software you want) to generate a
large number of samples of X and plot a histogram of them. On the same
graph plot the pdf of a normally distributed random variable with the mean
and variance you found in part (a). Note that to generate one sample of X
requires rolling the die 100 times. (The computer will be happy to do that
for you.)
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