### This is a program by Matthew Berman. ### Suppose we take a sample of size n = 31 from a Normal population with mean 2 ### and standard deviation 3, where both mu and sigma are both unknown. To calculate a 95% Confidence ### Interval for mu we use the standard t-interval formula. To show that the 95% ### confidence level is correct we simulate random samples from the population and ### compute the C.I.'s for each sample and check the coverage. We should expect to ### see 95% of the intervals cover mu. ####################################################################### # R is number of samples R = 1000 # N is number of observations per sample N = 31 # 31 was chosen so that the t-statistic will have 30 df mu = 2 #arbitrary value of mu sigma = 3 #arbitrary value of sigma count = 0 zstar = 1.96 #(for a 95% C.I. with normal dist.) tstar = 2.042 #(for a 95% C.I. with t dist., 30 df) for(i in 1:R){ x = rnorm(N,mu,sigma) xbar = mean(x) xsd = sqrt(var(x)) UCL = xbar + tstar * xsd / sqrt(N) LCL = xbar - tstar * xsd / sqrt(N) if( mu > LCL && mu < UCL) count = count + 1 ; } count #this number is near 950 count/R #this number is near 0.95