How Do You Calculate the Range for Airline Bag Weights with 95% Confidence?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cameuth
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Statistics
cameuth
Messages
17
Reaction score
0

Homework Statement


Suppose that the weights of airline passenger bags are normally distributed with a mean of 48.14 pounds and a standard deviation of 3.71 pounds.
Let X represent the weight of a randomly selected bag. For what value of c is P(E(X) - c < X < E(X) + c)=0.95? Give your answer to four decimal places.

Homework Equations



I have statcrunch and a normal, poisson, and gamma calculator.

The Attempt at a Solution



For this I assume we are looking for a standard deviation. I've been playing with a calculator but honestly I just need help getting started. thanks.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I think the best way to approach this problem is to visual what the problem is asking for. What is the region under the Normal Curve that it wants?

In this case, the symmetry could be of use to you.
 
You're looking at a confidence interval.

The formula for it is: ##c = z^* \times \sigma##.
where z* is the critical z-value for the confidence level and ##\sigma## is the standard deviation.

For a confidence level of 0.95, z*=1.96, which you can find in any table for a standard normal distribution.
 
There are two things I don't understand about this problem. First, when finding the nth root of a number, there should in theory be n solutions. However, the formula produces n+1 roots. Here is how. The first root is simply ##\left(r\right)^{\left(\frac{1}{n}\right)}##. Then you multiply this first root by n additional expressions given by the formula, as you go through k=0,1,...n-1. So you end up with n+1 roots, which cannot be correct. Let me illustrate what I mean. For this...
Back
Top