Thread: [SOLVED] How to find the sample size?

Hello, this question seems rather simple but for some reason I can't see what to use to solve it.

Question : We want to do a study to determine the proportion of urban owners that have more than 1 computer.
I need to find the sample size to be certain at 99% that the estimation will be at most 3% of the real proportion.

A friend of mine suggested to use
n =

where n is the sample size, the value of Z, p the proportion and c the margin error.

So for my problem:
n = = 1849

My 3 questions:
a) Is it the right formula? if so where does it come from?
b) Why do we use p=0.5 when we have no clue what the proportion is going to be?
c) Why do we take the value of Z as a bilateral test (hence the instead of )?

Thanks (:

use p=.5 when you have no idea of the range of p
you're getting the max of p(1-p) which you can prove via calculus 1
z=2.576 (via the t-table, or use the online stat calculators)
and you want a two sided CI since you want the sample and true proportion to be within .03 of each other.