What is the problem that has dumbfounded people of all shape, size, talent and knowledge? What is the problem that caused scientists to argue ferociously? What is the problem that seems so simple, but can be so hard to understand? What is the problem that can help you understand how probability can deceive you? This problem is called the Monty Hall Problem. Some of you may have heard of this probability problem, based on the game show, “Let’s Make a Deal.” Imagine you are on this game show and Monty Hall, the host, shows you three doors, labelled one, two and three. Behind one of these doors is your dream prize, whether it be money, a brand new car, or a mansion. Behind the other two are “zonks” or goats, in other words, things that you don’t want. You choose a door and let’s say you choose door two. Monty opens number door 1 …show more content…
and reveals the goat inside. You are given a chance to switch to door number 3. Now, the question is: do you or do you not want to switch doors? Is there a strategy to winning this game? Where does the confusion arise? Let’s go back to the question that I brought up in my last paragraph. Do you or do you not switch? Does the probability of getting the prize change when you switch your answer? To answer this, let’s go through the probability. When you first choose a door, the chance that the car is behind the door is ⅓, right? After Monty opens the door with the zonk in it, does the probability that the car is behind the other door change? Most people will answer no, but the answer is YES! The probability of the car being in the other door has increased to ⅔. In order to see this, let’s say that the car is in door one, and you choose door one. Monty will open door 2 (the one with the zonk in it.) If you continue to follow the strategy of switching, and switch to the 3rd door, then you will lose the car. Now, let’s say that you choose door two, and Monty opens door 3. If you switch, then you will win the car. And then let’s say you choose door 3 and then Monty opens door 2. Switching will once again lead you to victory. So, when you switch, how many times out of three do you win? You will win two-thirds of the times. Still don’t get it?
Let’s say that instead of 3 doors you have 100 and let’s say you pick door number 1. Monty Hall opens all of the doors (which all have goats) except for number 1 and door number 37. Now, do you want to switch? My answer would be YES, because there’s a much, much bigger chance that the car is in door 37, rather than door 1. What can you take away from this problem? How does this show how we think about probability? This experiment demonstrates that probability is really tricky and can easily play games on us. Here is an example: Think about the lottery. Thousands of people invest a few of their dollars each day to buy a lottery ticket. But is it really worth the cost of collectively spending (as a country) $50 billion dollars a year? Many people think that the more lottery tickets you buy, the more likely you are to win the lottery. But, since the tickets are independent of another (they aren’t in any way related to each other) the probability stays the same, similar to a coin toss. The first toss that you do doesn’t affect the second one, and the first lottery ticket that you buy doesn’t affect your second
either. In this way, probability fiddles with our mind. Next time you have a probability question, think it thoroughly through, identifying the variables and checking to see if the odds are really in your favor. Lastly, I highly encourage you to continue researching this problem. Share it with your friends and family and encourage them to learn about this phenomenon.
In the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the reader is introduced to a utopian community who practice the tradition of a lottery every year. At first glance, it seems like a nice day and the kids are just collecting rocks while waiting for their parents to arrive. All of the citizens show some excitement over the upcoming the lottery. The text states,
Michelson, D. The historical reception of Shirley Jackson's "the lottery". In: KURZBAN, Robert; PLATEK, Steve. 18th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. 2006.
The setting in the stories The Lottery and The Rocking-Horse Winner create an atmosphere where the readers can be easily drawn in by the contrasting features of each short story. This short essay will tell of very important contrasting aspects of settings in that while both stories are different, both hold the same aspects.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two very meaningful and fascinating stories. These stories share similarities in symbols and themes but they do not share the same plot which makes it different from one another. Furthermore, “The lottery” was held in New England village where 300 people were living in that village. This event took place every once a year. Besides, the story begins where on one beautiful morning, everyone in that village gathered to celebrate the lottery. The surroundings were such that children were gathering stones while adults were chatting with each other. It was compulsory for every head of family or house to draw a slip of paper out of the box. In addition to that, the family that draws the slip in the black do will have to re draw in order to see who will win the lottery. Therefore, the winner of the lottery will be stoned to death. This is very shocking because in today’s lottery events, the winner will be awarded cash.
Tessie Hutchinson’s late arrival at the lottery seemed almost normal because people do get caught up in a chore and run late. The late arrival set her apart from the crowd. Mr. Summers, the man drawing the “winning” ticket from the box, noticed Tessie arriving late and states “Thought we were going to have to get on without you (567),” which is predictive about Tessie’s fate. Jackson produces suspense through the arrival of Tessie Hutchinson.
1. The voting game was interesting, and it was an analogy to real life situations. Initially I was confused and really did not understand the game. At first I assumed that if I voted the number 1 I would not receive any money, and if I voted the number 0, I would receive money. I was thinking this was a tricky game, and everyone would vote 0 because if they voted 1 they wouldn’t receive any money. I was wrong. Only fifteen students voted for the number 0: the rest voted for the number 1. I received $30,000 while the people who voted the number 1 received $38,000, $8,000 more! I then understood the game and how I should vote, but then a classmate pleaded his case and hoped everyone would vote 0, so the money we received would increase and we
Chance. 50/50. 1:2. Odds. These terms are familiar in gambling. Bet it all give it a shot. Is it worth the consequences? Are the problems worth the rewards? Imagine a gamble between life and death, war and peace. Would it be worth the destruction to have your way? What would you do to keep a competitor out of the game? Going neck and neck to find a way around combat. Would the world be the same? What would happen if you lost? When tension between World War II grows, a gamble for nuclear arms rises, becoming the cold war.
Change seems to be closer than expected. Many of the other villages changed their traditions and got rid of the lottery. This sparks some controversy in the society. Some villagers strongly believed that it was time for the lottery to end. Others did not want to part with their cultural traditions, some even believing that the lottery brought good harvest. Unfortunately for Tessie Hutchinson, the traditions do not change in time to spare her life. The author’s description of the symbols in the short story help to reveal the layers of the society in which the lottery exists. Throughout the short story, The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, the author’s depiction of the black box, Davy Hutchinson, the main character’s son, and the lottery itself help to convey the idea that fear of change can impede evolution in a
As soon as all the families had drawn, no one moved. Everyone just stood still waiting to see who got picked to be in the final drawing. "Then the voices began to say, `It's Hutchinson. It's Bill,' `Bill Hutchinson got it (The Lottery, pg. 5)." From a readers point of view this would be the greatest thing that could have ever happened to them, but not in this case. Moving forward in the story, Mrs. Hutchinson is found yelling, "It wasn't fair!" and "You didn't give him time to choose any paper he wanted (The Lottery, pg. 5)." People in the crowd were telling her to "be a good sport. All of us took the same chance (The Lottery, pg. 5)." Mrs. Hutchinson did not like the responses at all. She even demanded that her married daughter draw in the final round with them. This was only to lessen her chances of getting picked in the end.
The research our experiment was founded on was that carried out by Taylor and Faust (1952). They carried out an experiment on 105 student’s, which was designed in the method of the game ‘twenty questions’. The students were split into teams of one member, two members and four members. They were then told that the experimenter would keep an object in mind whether it is animal vegetable or mineral was also stated, and they were then allowed 20 questions and guesses to reveal the identity of the object. In there experiment they found that the group of two members performed better than the group of four members in terms of how many guesses and questions it took them and how long it took them to deduce the identity of the object. However Taylor and Faust found that the efficiency did not differ in any significant way.
In "Button Button", the couple receives an unknown box that has the power to reward them $200,000 once the button is pressed under the condition that someone they don't know will die. In theory, this is a really
The title of the story “The Lottery” is ironic. By reading the title, the reader would assume th...
Have you ever had your eye on the last piece of chocolate cake, but noticed your friend did also, or wanted to sit in the front seat, but was faced by your little brother or sister putting up a fight? At one point or another, everyone has found themselves in some form of disagreement or misunderstanding that has been solved with an easy solution, a coin toss. But how do you decide which side of the coin to chose? With that slice of cake calling your name, it would be quite helpful to know if the coin were biased to land on a particular side before you made your decision. One may not overthink the choice, since it is a common belief that there is a 50/50 chance when it comes to flipping a coin, however, this old adage may in fact be a decades old misconception. A group of graduate students from Stanford decided that they would address this problem not with logic, but with science, and conducted over 1,000 coin tosses to see what they could find.
Probability is always surrounding us from stock markets to the ever-simple heads or tails. This very complicated area of mathematics can be explained in a simpler way. It is how likely an event is to happen. The probability of an event will always be between 0 and 1. The closer it is to one, the more likely the event is to happen.