Blogspiration (9) - Monty Hall Problem

Blogspiration is a weekly meme hosted by GrowingUpYA and Saz101. The meme was created to help spark inspiration among bloggers, readers and writers alike. An inspirational quote/picture/video is posted weekly, on the day of the author's choosing, so that it may inspire creativity, conversation or just a little SOMETHING.

Let's say you are given the choice between Doors # 1, 2,  and 3, and one door has a cool prize behind it.  You pick # 1, and the host opens door #3 for you because there is nothing behind it.  Now you have the option - stick with door #1 or change your answer and pick #2.  It seems like there is only a fifty/fifty chance so you might as well stick with your answer.  But you shouldn't!  If you change your answer, you are more likely to get it right.  It's counter-intuitive, but the statistics support it.  It's called the Monty Hall Problem.

I had a conversation with my co-worker recently about this and found it such an interesting truth.  And even though I know it's true, it's still hard to understand why. I devote this blogspiration to logic problems - yay, it's awesome!

Derren Brown (my favorite illusionist extraordinaire) recently demonstrated the principle on one of his live shows.  I will just place this youtube video here in case anyone is interested in being enlightened in a far more entertaining and hilarious way than reading this post. Keep in mind that he slips in a few subliminal words and ideas to help influence the choice. 

And just in case the video's intro is a little long (about a minute or two), you can Click here to go right to the segment.