(Reply to Peter and to the edstat list.) "But given a finite population...": Yes, well, that's exactly the question, isn't it? If the population is normal, it isn't finite; if it's finite, it isn't normal, except approximately, in some (usually ill-defined) sense of "approximately".
Seems to me Peter's examples are not of a "finite normal population" (which seems to me an oxymoron), but of a way of approaching the expected value of the maximum of a rather large sample (assumed to be) drawn from a normal population. It is not that this is unreasonable; it's just that it's not how the original question was put. (Now, it might be closer to what the original question was _intended_ to be; but I have no way of assessing that, in the absence of a telepathic connection to Howard Kaplon's colleague's student.) I seem to recall having read, years ago, of something called "extreme value theory". Presumably it would have application here... -- Don. On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, Peter Flom wrote in part: > Clearly ... it depends on the nature of the distribution of the > variable in a particular population (and on population size). > > But given a finite population, I don't think the expected value of the > maximum of a normally distributed variable is infinity. (But maybe I > am all wrong....) <snip, the rest> ------------------------------------------------------------ Donald F. Burrill [EMAIL PROTECTED] 56 Sebbins Pond Drive, Bedford, NH 03110 (603) 626-0816 . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
