A paint manufacturer made a modification to a paint to speed up its drying time. Independent simple random samples of 11 cans of type A (the original paint) and 9 cans of type B (the modified paint) were selected and applied to similar surfaces. The drying times, in hours, were recorded.
The summary statistics are as follows.
Type A Type B
x1 = 76.3 hrs x2 = 65.1 hrs
s1 = 4.5 hrs s2 = 5.1 hrs
n1 = 11 n2 = 9
The following 98% confidence interval was obtained for μ1 – μ2, the difference between the mean drying time for paint cans of type A and the mean drying time for paint cans of type B:
4.90 hrs < μ1 – μ2 < 17.50 hrs
What does the confidence interval suggest about the population means?
