Calculate the following integral

This is an alternative approach.

Let $X_i$ ($i=1,\cdots , n$) be independent uniform random variable in $[0,1]$.

What is the PDF of $M=\max (X_1, \cdots, X_n)$?

Then what is $\mathbf{E}[M]$?


One can see by induction that:

$$\int_0^1 x_1 dx_1 \int_0^{x_2 } dx_2 \cdots = \int_0^1 x_1 \frac{x_{n - (n-1)}^{n-1}}{(n-1)!} dx_1 =\frac{1}{(n+1) \times (n-1)!}$$

Therefore, the original integral is:

$$n! \times \frac1{(n+1) \times (n-1)!} = \frac{n}{n+1}$$