Thread: suppose I've sampled 6 numbers from a popluation...

Suppose I've sampled 6 numbers from a population: 25,26,26,27,28,29.

In that case and .

How can I calculate the likelihood that the next three numbers will sum to say 90 or more?

Hey datanewb.

For this you will need to assume a distribution for the population and calculate the probability P(X1 + X2 + X3 > 90|Previous Observations). If you assume I.I.D samples then you will just calculate P(X1 + X2 + X3 > 90).

Did you have a distribution in mind?

chiro, thank you for getting me on the right track! I expected for there to be a mathematical formula I could just plug into, but now I see there are quite a few assumptions necessary to make such a calculation. I suppose I will just assume a normal distribution, although from the posted histogram, you can see that it doesn't exactly look normal. There are actually 90 data points involved (not 6 as the original question stated).