SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Get Those Brain Cells Working: The Monty Hall Problem
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 64 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.
-- Andy Warhol
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @02:28PM
Well, I should have also said something to put tongue in cheek as well; re-reading my original makes me totally look like the comment police. (And maybe it was, but I didn't have to be a jerk about it.)
You're right that the article is about the Monty Hall problem - the question almost seems like an afterthought. But individual behavior isn't as interesting to me as the group response to the question. You aren't "guilty" as an individual as much as the collective behavior of everyone was, "Hey! Let's focus on the setup instead of the question," instead of focusing on what to me would have been a more authentic nerdhood of talking about how knowledge of math is a beneficial thing generally and can be slippery.
Maybe instead of Betteridge and Godwin, we need a Monty's Law of Narcissism which states, "any circumstance in which the Monty Hall problem is mentioned will immediately direct all attention to the Monty Hall problem." With corollaries that always exist of: The One Who Tries To Prove It Ain't So, The One Who Notes The Problem Isn't Really How The Show Worked, and The One Who Makes Goat Jokes.
Anyway, your comment deserves kudos.