[ppinfish]

How many observations are needed to have a 50% chance of including at least 1 observation that equals or exceeds the value at 0.999 (or other level) of the cumulative distribution from which the observations are drawn? And does the shape of the cdf matter?

Using a random number scheme, I get about 694 observations required for a 50% chance at 0.999, but there should be an exact solution.

Thanks