How I spend my lunch breaks.

[nanila]

One of my work colleagues, whom I'll call Lab Mate 1 (LM1) decided to insert a probability puzzle into our lunchtime conversation earlier this week.

LM1: "Hey, have you guys heard of the Monty Hall problem?"

We shook our heads. LM1 then explained the Monty Hall problem to us, which runs like this (excerpt blatantly stolen from Wikipedia):

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 [but the door is not opened], 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?

Me: "Wait, what if you want to keep the goat? Can you do that?"
LM2: "Yes, what is market value for a goat? Cars depreciate really quickly. I bet goats don't."
LM3: "And what if you already have a car, but you happen to have an overgrown lawn? Then you'd want a goat."

LM1 looked at us in despair. "I don't feel you all are entering into the spirit of this game."

Comments

[lark_ascends]

*giggles*

Ahhh, I remember that problem from Numb3rs.

[nanila]

Whoa, TV that teaches statistics problems? Mind is blown. (See icon: apply to television.)

[lark_ascends]

Heeeeeeeeee.

Well, Numb3rs was half-centred around a mathematician, physicist, and a computer scientist, and did reasonably well with explaining concepts and showing that geeks didn't have to be ugly.