Ratio Distribution of Max and Min for Uniform random variables.

probabilityprobability distributionsuniform distribution

Let $X,Y$ be independent Uniform$(0,1)$ random variables. Set $Z = \frac{\min\{X,Y\}}{\max\{X,Y\}}$. Find the distribution of $Z$.

So I need to calculate $\mathbb{P}(Z \le z)$. I wasn't sure if I should use:

$\max\{X,Y\} = \frac{1}{2}(X+Y + \lvert X -Y \rvert)$ and $\min \{X,Y\} = \frac{1}{2}(X+Y – \lvert X -Y \rvert)$.

If I do this is seems to make it more complicated than maybe it should be. I haven't done any problems with a ratio or min and max yet.

Best Answer

For each $z\in (0,1)$,

\begin{align} P(Z\leqslant z)&=P(Z\leqslant z, X\geqslant Y)+P(Z\leqslant z, X<Y) \\&=P\left(\frac{Y}{X}\leqslant z, X\geqslant Y\right)+P\left(\frac{X}{Y}\leqslant z, X<Y \right) \\&=2P\left(\frac{X}{Y}\leqslant z, X<Y \right) \\&=2\int_0^1 P\left(X\leqslant yz, X<y\mid Y=y\right)\, dy \\&=2\int_0^1 P(X\leqslant yz)\, dy \\&=2\int_0^1 yz\,dy \\&=z \end{align}

Hence $Z$ is also a $U(0,1)$ variable.