A sample standard deviation of 10 weights of packages of grass seed distributed by a certain company was calculated to be 0.286. Assume that weights are normally distributed and find a 95% confidence interval for the standard deviation of all such packages of grass seed

Respuesta :

Answer:

[tex]\frac{(9)(0.286)^2}{19.02} \leq \sigma^2 leq \frac{(9)(0.286)^2}{2.70}[/tex]

[tex] 0.0387 \leq \sigma^2 \leq 0.2727[/tex]

Now we just take square root on both sides of the interval and we got:

[tex] 0.197 \leq \sigma \leq 0.522[/tex]

Step-by-step explanation:

Data given and notation

s=0.286 represent the sample standard deviation

[tex]\bar x[/tex] represent the sample mean

n=10 the sample size

Confidence=95% or 0.95

A confidence interval is "a range of values that’s likely to include a population value with a certain degree of confidence. It is often expressed a % whereby a population mean or variance lies between an upper and lower interval".  

The margin of error is the range of values below and above the sample statistic in a confidence interval.

The Chi Square distribution is the distribution of the sum of squared standard normal deviates .

Calculating the confidence interval

The confidence interval for the population variance is given by the following formula:

[tex]\frac{(n-1)s^2}{\chi^2_{\alpha/2}} \leq \sigma^2 \leq \frac{(n-1)s^2}{\chi^2_{1-\alpha/2}}[/tex]

The next step would be calculate the critical values. First we need to calculate the degrees of freedom given by:

[tex]df=n-1=10-1=9[/tex]

Since the Confidence is 0.95 or 95%, the value of [tex]\alpha=0.05[/tex] and [tex]\alpha/2 =0.025[/tex], and we can use excel, a calculator or a table to find the critical values.  

The excel commands would be: "=CHISQ.INV(0.025,9)" "=CHISQ.INV(0.975,9)". so for this case the critical values are:

[tex]\chi^2_{\alpha/2}=19.02[/tex]

[tex]\chi^2_{1- \alpha/2}=2.70[/tex]

And replacing into the formula for the interval we got:

[tex]\frac{(9)(0.286)^2}{19.02} \leq \sigma^2 leq \frac{(9)(0.286)^2}{2.70}[/tex]

[tex] 0.0387 \leq \sigma^2 \leq 0.2727[/tex]

Now we just take square root on both sides of the interval and we got:

[tex] 0.197 \leq \sigma \leq 0.522[/tex]