If a stick of unit length is broken randomly at two points, to make 3 pieces of stick. What is the expected value of the largest stick.
Is there an elegant solution to this problem?
Thanks.
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Dan Brumleve
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vishmay
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Try using $2$ uniformly distributed random variables. Then the lengths are given by $X$, $Y-X$ and $1-Y$ (assuming $X<Y$). There might be a simpler model, I'll revisit later. – Ennar Aug 12 '15 at 07:08
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3Similar question was answered here: http://math.stackexchange.com/q/14190/99255 – srnoren Aug 12 '15 at 07:08