Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 ib Paper 2 3D Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For an observed , the continuous uniform distribution likelihood is , with . Multiplying by the stated prior cancels the factor , giving . Its integral over the permitted parameter values is . Hence the posterior distribution isThis is the exponential posterior for a uniform endpoint. Its posterior mean is and its variance is one. The posterior expected squared-error loss decomposes asSince , its unique minimum occurs at the Bayes estimate . The positive loss multiplier changes the risk, not the optimizing action.