A stick is broken at two points, chosen at random. If the length of the stick is 6 units, then what is the probablility that all three pieces are shorter than 5 units?
Thanks for the help!
Suppose X and Y are random variables which follow the continuous uniform distribution on [0, 6]. These random variables will represent the points where we break the stick at.
The probability in question is simply expressible as P(min(X,Y)≤5 and max(X,Y)≥1 and |X−Y|≤5).
Let S={(x,y):0≤x≤6,0≤y≤6} and P={(x,y)∈S∣min(x,y)≤5 and max(X,Y)≥1 and |X−Y|≤5}. The required probability is Area(P)Area(S). The following is a graph of P:
Now, the probability is Area(P)Area(S)=(5−1)2(6−0)2=49.
I think a slight problem to your solution is that you are saying our (X,Y) can be equal to 5 but the quesiton doesn't want our pieces to even equal to five. Would this change your solution? I haven't entered anything. I wanted to check before doing any submitting.
Thanks for the help!