Re: [Phys-l] Monty Hall problem

[John Mallinckrodt <ajm@csupomona.edu>]

It seems to me that the statement of the problem in the Wikipedia article (taken, as I understand it, from the original question sent to her) is almost, but not quite well specified.  It was:

> 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 #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?

To get the (presumed) original intent, it must additionally be made clear that the host *would* have opened a door with a goat behind it regardless of your first choice.

In that case, if you stick with your original choice, it should be perfectly obvious that 1) you will win 1/3 of the time and 2) EVERY other time, the car is behind the door you COULD have switched to.

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona

On Jan 5, 2011, at 10:37 AM, chuck britton wrote:

> Interesting development - so,
>
>  In what way is this OTHER statement of the problem ill-posed, 
> ambiguous, underspecified, etc.
>  The contestants optimal strategy (still) seems clear to me.