medium   Probability

Last Light Bulb Standing

A release-checked medium problem for training Continuous Random Variables, Conditional Probability.

Question

Suppose you have $10$ independent light bulbs labelled $1-10$ whose lifetime is modelled by $T_i \sim \text{Exp}(1/10)$ for each $1 \leq i \leq 10$. Furthermore, suppose you have an $11$th light bulb whose lifetime is modelled by $X \sim \text{Exp}(1/90)$. Find $\mathbb{P}[X > T_1 + \dots + T_{10}]$. The answer is in the form $q^{b}$, where $0 < q < 1$ is a rational number and $b$ is an integer with $b$ maximal. Find $qb$.

Practice focus

This Probability problem is tagged Continuous Random Variables, Conditional Probability. State the random variables and conditioning information explicitly, then check the result against boundary cases before opening hints or a solution.

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