[Skarlath]

First thing, I urge as many as you as possible not to research it before having a think - try and puzzle it out yourself. Once you are thoroughly convinced that it cannot possibly be true, search for the monty hall problem on wikipedia for a nice set of explanations.

I just thought this was really interesting. Here goes:

You are on a gameshow! There are three doors, behind one of them is a car but behind the other two are goats. You must pick a door. Select 1, 2 or 3 now.

Once your selection has been made the gameshow host, who knows what is behind each door, eliminates one of the two doors that you didn't pick that doesn't have the car. He then offers you the opportunity to change your choice.

Do you stick with your original choice, or should you switch your choice to the other door?



As I said, think it through and by all means post the conclusion you feel you come to before you go looking it up.

[Eclipse]

I'd stick with my original choice.
That's how I feel, but I'm not sure why.

-Eclipse

[Xyrrus]

Originally Posted by Skarlath

First thing, I urge as many as you as possible not to research it before having a think - try and puzzle it out yourself. Once you are thoroughly convinced that it cannot possibly be true, search for the monty hall problem on wikipedia for a nice set of explanations.

I just thought this was really interesting. Here goes:

You are on a gameshow! There are three doors, behind one of them is a car but behind the other two are goats. You must pick a door. Select 1, 2 or 3 now.

Once your selection has been made the gameshow host, who knows what is behind each door, eliminates one of the two doors that you didn't pick that doesn't have the car. He then offers you the opportunity to change your choice.

Do you stick with your original choice, or should you switch your choice to the other door?



As I said, think it through and by all means post the conclusion you feel you come to before you go looking it up.

I won't post my reasoning so others can work it out, but I say switch (its also one of my more favorite problems)

-Xy

[Havelock]

Definitely switch.

[Lord_Vyper]

Switch.

[Razorwire]

I would have said stay with the choice, but then I looked at the problem descriptions on the web

[Skarlath]

The probability behind it is very straight forward, but logic is counterintuitive. I guess it's more of a psychological puzzle than a maths one.

A couple of people I have shown it to got quite angry at me for insisting on the "correct action", but were kicking themselves when I walked them through it.

[Razorwire]

I know one person that refuses to accept that you have a better chance of winning by switching and refuses to even consiter the math.