# Talk:German tank problem

WikiProject Mathematics (Rated B-class, Low-importance)
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mathematics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.
Mathematics rating:
 B Class
 Low Importance
Field: Probability and statistics
WikiProject Statistics (Rated B-class, Low-importance)

This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Statistics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of statistics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page or join the discussion.

B  This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Low  This article has been rated as Low-importance on the importance scale.
WikiProject Military history (Rated C-Class)
C This article has been rated as C-Class on the quality assessment scale.

## (init)

Title added for discussion —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 23:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys, I really like this problem, and I didn't see it on Wikipedia, so I decided to write one myself! I hope I didn't screw things up too much :P Themandotcom (talk) 18:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

## Title?

I’ve seen this problem at various times, to illustrate differences in estimation, but I haven’t heard a pithy name – has it one?

(I named it “Maximum of a discrete uniform distribution” to start to avoid the sesquipedalian “Estimation of the maximum of a discrete uniform distribution”, which is admittedly more precise.)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 16:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok, looks like German tank problem already exists (and this was the pithy example that I had heard), so I’ve merged the article there (hat tip to Michael Hardy).
—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 23:40, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

## Median discussion has errors

The median-unbiased estimator (with maximum concentration on symmetric convex sets) differs from the umvu estimator: See van der Vaart's book, which has both examples. The umvu estimator is not median-unbiased, and so there must be an error in the description of the umvu estimator. Thank you. (I apologize for being brief today.) Sincerely, Kiefer.Wolfowitz (talk) 14:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Be bold and remove or correct it! Bo Jacoby (talk) 08:35, 28 July 2009 (UTC).

## iPhone production

I don't think it is appropriate for this article to include a discussion of iPhone production. This is an article on a mathematical problem. The connection to estimation of wartime production is appropriate because of the strong historical ties. There is no such connection to estimating the production of iPhones. It would be inappropriate to use this article as an archive of situations where this problem has arisen. I think we should restrict the scope of this article to (1) a mathematical treatment of the problem and (2) a discussion of the historical applications. iPhones meet neither of these criteria. Nippashish (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree. (The iPhone production material has since been removed.) 98.210.208.107 (talk) 14:08, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
Totally disagree. The iphone production was a neat and high profile use of the technique 128.114.23.110 (talk) 06:03, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

## cleanup needed

The article looks messy in mine eyes. The structure needs clean-up. Some part of the article tacitly assumes that only one tank has been observed. The distinction between frequentist and Bayesian approaches is not clear. Somebody please help. Bo Jacoby (talk) 04:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC).

I have now done a lot of cleanup myself. The section 'Observing one tank' is not very enlightning, and I want to remove it. Any objections? Any comments? Bo Jacoby (talk) 18:22, 30 June 2011 (UTC).
Under "Specific data" it says "Applying the above formula..." but there's no formula above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.237.38.23 (talk) 16:27, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

## "circular reasoning"

The following could use some polish:

"Note that one cannot naively use m/k (or rather (m + m/k − 1)/k) as an estimate of the standard error SE, as the standard error of an estimator is based on the population maximum (a parameter), and using an estimate to estimate the error in that very estimate is circular reasoning."

If psi = f(theta), it is perfectly legitimate to estimate psi by f(theta-hat) ... it isn't circular reasoning. Might not produce a good estimator, but that's a different matter.

Floombottle (talk) 20:30, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

## mean, sd, pmf

Does anyone have a reference for these? The pmf was clearly wrong until I changed it just now. I changed the normalizing constant so now it sums to 1 and agrees with the mean and sd that are given on the wiki page. Here is a verification in R.

> tanks <- function(n, k, m){(k-1) / k * choose(m-1, k-1) / choose(n, k)}
> m <- 14
> k <- 4
> n <- 14:1000000
> sum(tanks(n, k, m))
[1] 1
> sum(tanks(n, k, m)*n) # mean (with approximation error)
[1] 19.5
> (m-1)*(k-1) / (k-2) # mean from wikipedia
[1] 19.5
> sqrt(sum(tanks(n, k, m)*n^2) - sum(tanks(n, k, m)*n)^2) # sd (with approximation error)
[1] 10.35591
> sqrt(3 * 13 * 11 / (1 * 4)) # sd from wikipedia
[1] 10.35616


I was lazy and just verified these results, but I did not take the time to actually go through the math and prove that the normalizing constant is (k-1)/k instead of k/(k-1) (which is what it used to say).

Can someone also give some intuition behind the pmf? I understand that the {m-1 \choose k-1} is coming from choosing where the observed serial numbers (except the maximum) come between 1 and m-1. I also understand the {n \choose k} since we are sampling k tanks from the n that we are considering. But I have no good intuition behind the (k-1)/k part.

AustenWHead (talk) 02:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

## rounding mean value

Editor HugoMe just changed $N \approx \mu \pm \sigma = 20 \pm 10$ into $N \approx \mu \pm \sigma = 19.5 \pm 10$. The rounded value is to be preferred, IMO. Bo Jacoby (talk) 16:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC).

## "The" frequentist estimate and "the" Bayesian estimate??

In this article in its present form, we are told that are certain expressions.

That's silly. Either an MLE or an unbiased estimate would be a frequentist estimate, and they're different. And there are as many Bayesian estimates as there are priors. Whoever wrote this didn't say which criteria were intended to be satisfied by "the" [sic] frequentist estimate or which prior was used in obtaining "the" [sic] Bayesian estimate. Omission of that sort of thing is disrespectful to the reader. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:23, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree, though it is nice to contrast the two different approaches to the problem. I think it can be fixed by just being clear that The frequentist/Bayesian formula uses refers to the estimates given in the text below. 84.93.172.231 (talk) 16:46, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
"There are as many Bayesian estimates as there are priors". If you suggest another prior then please include it. Bo Jacoby (talk) 04:06, 9 July 2014 (UTC).

## Historical Problem

It seems to me that Panther tank had two series of eight wheels on each side, so that there should be thirty-two wheels on each tank, and not forty-eight, as it is written here. However, the total of ninety-six wheels could be true if we suppose there were three tanks instead of two. By the way, the article says SHAEF "obtained" two tanks. It would be interesting to know by which means. Can we assume that those tanks were captured in full condition at Anzio ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrJosef (talkcontribs) 16:58, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree on the number of wheels. I've found a citation that it was 2 tanks, so assuming no spare wheels mounted or wheels lost, that gives 64 in total. I've edited the article. On where these tanks were captured the citation mentions Anzio but not specifically as where they were captured.--Flexdream (talk) 11:33, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

## Move 'Example' section?

The 'Example' section appears at the start of the body of the article. Shouldn't the 2 examples be moved to their relevant approaches i.e. the frequentist estimate and the Bayesian estimate? Rather than stand apart at the start?--Flexdream (talk) 11:10, 7 July 2014 (UTC)