How The Allies Used Math Against German Tanks on Wired.com’s Autotopia blog: For point estimation (estimating a single value for the total), the minimum-variance unbiased estimator (MVUE, or UMVU estimator) is given by [serial-number-method formula]where m is the largest serial number observed (sample maximum) and k is the number of tanks observed (sample size). Note that once a serial number has been observed, it is no longer in the pool and will not be observed again. This has a variance of: [more elaborate formula]. Once they know how many tanks the Germans were building, the Allies knew how big a force was required to counter it. And that’s how Allied mathletes helped win the war.

How The Allies Used Math Against German Tanks on Wired.com’s Autotopia blog:

For point estimation (estimating a single value for the total), the minimum-variance unbiased estimator (MVUE, or UMVU estimator) is given by [serial-number-method formula]

where m is the largest serial number observed (sample maximum) and k is the number of tanks observed (sample size). Note that once a serial number has been observed, it is no longer in the pool and will not be observed again.

This has a variance of: [more elaborate formula].

Once they know how many tanks the Germans were building, the Allies knew how big a force was required to counter it. And that’s how Allied mathletes helped win the war.

Notes

  1. tiffehr posted this