Thread: Exponetial distribution problem

Can anyone help me solve this - I get negative values...

When I go swimming, the distance in meters that I can swim before getting cramp in one of my hands is exponentially distributed with mean 332.4 meters. What is the probability that, on a random occasion when I go swimming, I swim a total of at most 493.1 meters without getting hand cramp given that I swim at least 324.5 meters without getting cramp?

Thanks, F

Could you show your work?

Now i just get zero for all my probabilities:

Can you confirm that the question is asking:


P(x=493.1| 324.5<X<493.1) because to not get cramp would mean swimming the longest distance before getting it?

However, when I use these big numbers in the standard exp dist functions of:
letting lamda = 332.4, a = 324.5, b = 493.1 and z = 493.1

( exp (-lamda*z)-exp(-lamda*a) ) / ( exp (-lamda*b)-exp(-lamda*a))

Which would cancel (must mean I'm wrong somewhere). But even putting in exp(-163906) it always zeros?!?

First, , so .

Second, exponential distribution is continuous, so the probability that equals any concrete real number is zero.

Can you confirm that the question is asking:

P(x=493.1| 324.5<X<493.1)

I think that "swim a total of at most 493.1 meters" means and "swim at least 324.5 meters" means . So, the question is to find . Now you can use the memorylessness property of the exponential distribution.