Suppose that you have 10 identical components in a machine, and that the lifetime of each component is independent of all the others. Assume that each component's lifetime has an exponential distribution with the mean lifetime of w hours.
You start the machine, and leave it operating alone for 24 hours. Upon return you notice that 2 of 10 components have failed.
a. What is the probability of exactly 2 out of 10 components failing within 24 hours?
b. Write down the likelihood function as a function of w.
c. What value of w maximizes the likelihood function? (Find the maximum likelihood estimate of w.)