another puzzler
Smitty Two wrote:
In article , PeterD
wrote:
On 5/20/2011 8:49 PM, Bill Graham wrote:
Suppose for the moment that there are two contestants. One picks
door two, and the other picks door one. Then the moderator opens
door three and shows everyone that there is a donkey behind that
door. Now, will it make any difference if the other two switch
their initial picks or not? And, if they do swap doors, with they
both enjoy a 2/3 chance of winning?
This is called the Monty Hall problem. And yes, switching does change
the probabilities of winning, and this can be proved with a simple
computer program. I use this in both my math classes when we cover
probabilities, and in my programming classes.
Did you just wake up from a long winter's nap?
No, but I must have been napping when they mentioned Monty Hall. I never
heard of him or his math problems, and I have a BS in Math. (Santa Clara,
1974)
|