Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 219 2 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Choose a fixed , and write and . The predicted magnitude is . Thus the likelihood depends on only through , the absolute magnitude–Hubble constant degeneracy. Since at fixed , integrating with a flat density over the entire real line removes .
Explicitly, let , , , and . Completing the square gives , so flat-prior elimination of a Gaussian common mean yieldsindependently of . The proportionality includes the arbitrary constant of the flat prior, which cancels within this posterior analysis.
If the remaining posterior integral is finite, prior independence gives and hence : these data supply no marginal update of the Hubble constant. The quoted Gaussian is consequently retained with its stated . Strictly, the model uses inside a logarithm, so the Gaussian prior must be restricted and normalized on that domain:where are the standard normal density and distribution function. Ignoring its negligible negative tail gives the stated untruncated Gaussian approximation.