MATH 2240 - ENGINEERING STATISTICS

Assignment #3
Answer all 8 questions.
DUE: Thursday 18th April, 2019 at 3 p.m.

1. In a certain oce, calls arrive randomly at a rate of 2 per minute. Determine the probability that
(a) more than 2 calls arrive in a given minute.
(b) anywhere from 5 to 7 calls arrive in a 3 minute interval.

2. Suppose that 1% of the products manufactured in a factory are defective. The products are sold in
boxes, each containing 50 items. For each box sold, the manufacturer oers to refund the customer if
the number of defective items is at least 3. What percentage of boxes would be refunded?

3. In a certain company, the amount of time, in minutes, that a sta meeting lasts is uniformly distributed
between 0 and 45 minutes. What is the probability that a meeting lasts between 23 and 37 minutes?

4. A machine is set to cut metal rods of length 2 m, but due to random variations that cannot be
controlled, the actual length X varies slightly and can be modelled as a normal random variable with
µ = 2 m and σ = 0.001 m.

(a) What proportion of the metal rods produced have length

i. less than 2.0007 m?
ii. between 1.9998 m and 2.0003 m?
(b) Find the value of x such that 33% of the metal rods have length less than x m.

5. Assume that the heights of engineers are normally distributed with a mean of 175 cm and a standard
deviation of 10 cm. A random sample of the heights of 25 engineers is taken.
(a) What is the probability that any given observation will be greater than 177.5 cm?
(b) What is the probability that the mean height of the sample will be greater than 177.5 cm?

6. (a) A random sample of size n = 50 is taken from a normal population with known variance σ 2 = 9.
The observed sample mean is X = 37.2. Find a 99% condence interval for the population mean
µ.
(b) A random sample of size n = 73 is taken from a normal population with unknown variance σ 2 .
The observed sample mean is X = 19.1 and the observed sample variance is s2 = 2.5. Find a 90%
condence interval for the population mean µ.
(c) A random sample of size n = 25 is taken from a normal population with unknown variance σ 2 .
The observed sample mean is X = 23.5 and the observed sample variance is s2 = 3.1. Find a 95%
condence interval for the population mean µ.
7. A machine is set to cut metal rods with length that is normally distributed with µ = 2 m and
σ = 0.001 m. The performance of the machine is checked periodically by taking a random sample
of 25 rods and computing the average length X . The machine is assumed to be working correctly if
1.9998 ≤ X ≤ 2.0002, otherwise, we conclude that µ 6= 2 m.
(a) Find the probability of committing a type I error.
(b) Find the probability of committing a type II error when µ = 1.9996 m.

8. The mean breaking strength of yarn used in manufacturing drapery material is claimed to be 100 psi.
Past experience indicates that the breaking strength of yarn is normally distributed with a standard
deviation of 2.5 psi. A random sample of 13 specimens is tested, and the average breaking strength is
found to be 101.4 psi. Test the hypothesis that the mean breaking strength is µ = 100 psi against the
alternative, µ 6= 100 psi. Use a 0.05 level of signicance.