Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/iii/paper-207/4/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 207 4 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a nonnegative continuous event time, the survivor function is ; here the printed denotes survival, not the usual cumulative distribution function. A lower median isFor a continuous strictly decreasing survivor function this is the unique solution of . If the curve has a flat stretch at , the distribution has a nonunique median and the infimum specifies the lower endpoint.
The tail integral formula for moments follows from and Tonelli theorem. Therefore, when survival vanishes beyond ,If at every finite time, the mean is finite precisely when . For a concrete sufficient condition, require for all , with and . The integral over is at most , and the tail integral is at most . An exponential tail bound also suffices. Merely having , or even , does not suffice: a properly completed decreasing tail proportional to for has infinite mean.
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