Come forth and be confused!

[Brainmaster07]

I find the easiest way to think about this question is as follows, the answer being you should switch your choice of doors.

When you pick your first door, you are probably wrong (2/3 chance of being wrong).
The host opens an empty door.
You know that your first guess was probably wrong...
By switching to the other door, your chances of winning are better because your first choice was probably wrong.

Makes sense to me, aperson wins.

[VxDx]

Hmmm, ok, you're right.
seriously, I thought about it wrong.

[banditcom]

At first you think "oh there's 2 left, so there's 50% chance." No... wrong. Stats doesn't make sense on the surface. You have to look into it and think about it.

EDIT: No prob VxDx.

EDIT 2: By the way, I hate stats...

[aperson]

Haha Vx, don't worry, a lot of people get drawn out at least 3 times as wrong. It's one of those that just sounds SO DAMN ILLOGICAL when you hear the answer.

[Lupin_the_3rd]

i'm still not convinced. you and your friend each purchase a lottery ticket. Your lottery ticket has one number on it. there is only one winner, and one person is guaranteed to win(so don't tell me bs about lottery rules). 1000 people enter into the lottery. You somehow know that the 998 other people have lost. Do you at that point turn to your friend and say i have a better chance than you at winning the lottery? NO THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME CHANCE OF WINNING.

please disprove this without using a retarted program

[aperson]

i'm still not convinced. you and your friend each purchase a lottery ticket. Your lottery ticket has one number on it. there is only one winner, and one person is guaranteed to win(so don't tell me bs about lottery rules). 1000 people enter into the lottery. You somehow know that the 998 other people have lost. Do you at that point turn to your friend and say i have a better chance than you at winning the lottery? NO THEY ARE EXACTLY THE SAME CHANCE OF WINNING.

please disprove this without using a retarted program

I don't need to disprove it.

You know why? It's not the same thing.

[Lupin_the_3rd]

so using the lottey theme, please explain what the original problem is, i'm just thinking about it the wrong way

[aperson]

http://www.crummy.com/features/hall/monty/monty.cgi?times=1000&percent=100&log=on

http://math.ucsd.edu/~crypto/Monty/montybg.html

Owned. Idiot.

[Cenright]

The Explanation


I have seen where my 50/50 flaw is.

Here people. It IS right. I can give you the concept WITHOUT using the math, so all you conceptual people can see it.

When you choose a door, he chooses a wrong door. If you choose a wrong door, he must choose the OTHER wrong door, because you chose yours, so he can't.

Let's put the prize in door 2.
________________
|_W_| |_P_| |_W_|

If You chose 1, he must choose 3. Swap (To #2) and Win
If You chose 3, he must choose 1. Swap (To #2) and Win
If You chose 2, he can choose either, You swap (to the other wrong one) and lose.




That is where the 2/3 chance is.

[QreepyBORIS]

There we go!

Now I get it.

[Lupin_the_3rd]

yeah, i was looking at it wrong, and don't call me an idiot if you couldn't even explain the answer well in the first place

[Cenright]

Aperson saw how to do the math, but I don't think he got the concept behind it. He only knew that it worked.

I could be wrong though, but then why didn't he just explain it like that?

[QreepyBORIS]

His explanation was uber ambiguous.

[Cenright]

He didn't get it.

That is the reason probably. He only knew math. Math doesn't help much if you don't know why it comes out the way it does.

[aperson]

He didn't get it.

That is the reason probably. He only knew math. Math doesn't help much if you don't know why it comes out the way it does.

Actually that's just a highly simplified version of it. Trust me on this... Look at the 'exhaustive proof.' on page 2... thanks.