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Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
Do any of you have any noteworthy experiences where knowledge of math helped you in an unusual way?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
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Get Those Brain Cells Working: The Monty Hall Problem
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(Score: 3, Informative) by tangomargarine on Friday July 29 2016, @02:25PM
If he doesn't offer the choice to switch every time, on the "you can have both other doors" offer I would be extremely suspicious I had already selected the winning one. Assuming they wanted to save money and *not* give away the car.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by WalksOnDirt on Friday July 29 2016, @04:41PM
Sure, that makes it a simple exercise in game theory. You should never switch. The problem has to be stated very carefully to avoid that, and it usually isn't.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @06:56PM
That makes sense given your assumptions, but as noted before, sometimes they wanted to give away the car. The sponsor gets better publicity when the contestant wins the car. They have to strike a balance between giving away the car and ending up with a goat to keep the audience interested.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Friday July 29 2016, @07:19PM
But the assumption is wrong. They want to give away the car often enough to keep the excitement high. Besides that, the car was given to them by a sponsor and it only holds value for the game as long as it is the current year model. They make a lot more producing the show than they will selling the car off.