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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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squatcho, n.:
The button at the top of a baseball cap.
-- "Sniglets", Rich Hall & Friends
(Score: 5, Interesting) by donkeyhotay on Friday July 29 2016, @03:20PM
I can think of a time when I helped another poor idiot with my knowledge of math. Last year I was in line at a big-box retailer. I bought about $60 worth of merchandise. The clerk rang up the total and I handed her a $100 bill. When she entered the amount tendered, she added a zero, and the cash register told her to give me approximately $940 in change... and she started to give it to me! I said, "No, that's wrong. You keyed in the wrong amount," and she had no clue what was going on. She still wanted to give me the $940! We had to call a manager over to get it straightened out. In the end, judging by the look on her face, she still seemed put out that I had pointed out the mistake. She seemed to have no concept of how much trouble she would have been in if she had come up $900 short on her register.
Come to think of it, there was a time when I did use math to try to benefit myself. A company where I was doing contract programming had one of those contests where they filled a gallon jar full of jelly beans, and then you were supposed to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar. There was some sort of vacation package for the winner. I decided to calculate the approximate volume of a jelly bean and then calculate about how many you could fit in the volume of a gallon jar. When a couple of the employees saw that I was using math, they got pissed. I mean SEROUSLY pissed. I decided it might be best if I excluded myself from the prize, but even when I insisted that I had no intention of taking the prize, that I was just doing it for fun, they were still upset. Eventually, the office manager came to me and asked me to take back my entry card saying, "I know you're just doing it for fun, but it's upsetting people." I just smiled, shook my head, took back the card, and stuck it in a desk drawer. The next day, after the winner was announced, I pulled out my card and showed it to the office manager. I was within 44 jelly beans of the correct answer (which was even way better than I expected). No one had guessed anywhere near that close.
People love math if it is invisible; if it helps build bridges and new houses, helps their cars brake better, keeps them from getting lost -- they just don't want to actually see it. Because when you pull it out and show it to them, even if it is simple, even if you are trying to help them, they think it is witchcraft.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @04:12PM
I don't think they were pissed because of some vague hatred/distrust of math, they felt lime you were cheating. Its like setting up a tripod Mount for one if those shooting gallery games. You were ruining the mystery and fun of guessing. I agree they were silly and stupid, but I don't think it was a "witchcraft" kind of thing.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday July 29 2016, @05:56PM
How dare you, a mere fallible human, distrust the perfect machine that says . . . Change Due: $940.00.
That's what she might be upset about.
The anti vax hysteria didn't stop, it just died down.