Answer :
Answer:
[tex]n=(\frac{2.58(18)}{4})^2 =134.79 \approx 135[/tex]
So the answer for this case would be n=135 rounded up to the nearest integer
And for this case the value of 135 for a sample is possible and makes sense since is not an impossible value
Step-by-step explanation:
Previous concepts
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 means 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.
Normal distribution, is a "probability distribution that is symmetric about the mean, showing that data near the mean are more frequent in occurrence than data far from the mean".
[tex]\bar X[/tex] represent the sample mean for the sample
[tex]\mu[/tex] population mean (variable of interest)
[tex]\sigma[/tex] represent the population standard deviation
n represent the sample size
Solution to the problem
Since the Confidence is 0.99 or 99%, the value of [tex]\alpha=0.01[/tex] and [tex]\alpha/2 =0.005[/tex], and we can use excel, a calculator or a table to find the critical value. The excel command would be: "=-NORM.INV(0.005,0,1)".And we see that [tex]z_{\alpha/2}=2.58[/tex]
The margin of error is given by this formula:
[tex] ME=z_{\alpha/2}\frac{\sigma}{\sqrt{n}}[/tex] (a)
And on this case we have that ME =4 and we are interested in order to find the value of n, if we solve n from equation (a) we got:
[tex]n=(\frac{z_{\alpha/2} \sigma}{ME})^2[/tex] (b)
Replacing into formula (b) we got:
[tex]n=(\frac{2.58(18)}{4})^2 =134.79 \approx 135[/tex]
So the answer for this case would be n=135 rounded up to the nearest integer
And for this case the value of 135 for a sample is possible and makes sense since is not an impossible value