I have a brain teaser for you. Do you remember the game show Let's Make a Deal, hosted by Monte Hall? In the UK it had another name. Monty Python, I think.
`
Anyway, the point of the show was for Monte to get contestants like Miss A. Raggedy, shown to the right, to reach into Monte's pants pocket. If she fished around in there long enough, she'd earn $100.
I think that's how it worked. My memory is kinda hazy about that show because it came on after school, which was prime ganja time. Let's Make a Deal aired during that sweet one and a half hour period after school but before the parents came home from work. Every day at 3:30 to 5:00, we watched tv and got high, which really helped us to unwind and forget the day's lessons.
Anyway, at the end of each episode of Let's Make a Deal, the contestant that played the best game of pocket pool was allowed to choose one of three doors. Behind one door was a good prize, like a large sack of columbian gold. Behind the other two doors was something unpleasant, like a narcotics officer. My memory is also a little foggy about the prizes. I may be getting things mixed up with a Cheech and Chong skit.
So, once the contestant chose a door, Monte the Perv would show what was behind one of the two doors that the contestant did NOT choose. That door would reveal one of the two non-prizes behind it. That left only two doors, one of which had the prize. Then Monte Pockets would really mess with the contestant's mind by giving him or her the option of switching doors.
Most of us had happily forgotten this program until a few years back when some genius named Marilyn Vos Savant (I'm not kidding - that's really her name), claimed that the best choice, if the show were ever to be revived, would be to ALWAYS switch doors. She claimed that if you stuck with the original door, there was a 2/3 chance that you would be frog-marched out in cuffs, but if you switched doors, there was a 2/3 chance that you would toke up with Monte after the show.
Many intelligent, well-educated people (not my school friends) have disagreed with this claim - college math professors, even. What do you think? Was Little Miss MENSA correct? Should Miss Ragedy switch doors and thereby stand a better chance at winning? Or would she do better to stay with the original door? Does it even matter whether she switches or not?
Okay, there are plenty of websites and wikipedia-type write-ups on this problem (it's known as the Monte Hall problem. Personally, I think that term should be reserved for dirty old men who tell unsuspecting young girls that there is $100 in their pants that they can have if they can find it).
Go ahead and look at those websites. Read up if you want. I actually do think that the extremely above-average kind of mind that tends to peruse this blog can figure it out. BUT, can you explain it in the short amount of space provided by the blogger comment box?
