Yeah, I realize I'm really reaching for clever titles to these 5 o'clock posts.
Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts. Marino is an obvious shoo-in. Derrick Thomas and Steve Young were great while they played, but I don't know that they played long enough. The fact that Art Monk isn't in already should be a much bigger story than it seems to be. My intense loathing for Michael Irvin, as a player, broadcaster and person, probably clouds my judgment, but I just don't see how he could possibly be a Hall of Famer. I'd like to see Russ Grimm in.
In other hall of fame news, Butch Buchholz, Jim Courier, Jana Novotna and Yannick Noah were elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Jana Novotna is officially the Rube Marquard of the ITHF.
In this odd story about lost hunter who flags down a rescue helicopter with his underpants is this puzzling tidbit: "Anticipating a cold night in the wilderness, Lipscomb drank dirty bayou water and ate a raw duck breast before he was spotted." Didn't he eat before leaving the house? He was only in the woods for 12 hours for chrissakes.
I read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (the guy who wrote Mystic River) on Sunday. It's a quick read, and a total mind-f**k to boot. I highly recommend it.
So there's no confusion, the question is snipped straight from Dean Esmay's post (the answer, on the other hand, is my own, so blame me for how badly it's mangled):
You find yourself on a game show called "Let's Make A Deal." The game is very simple. There are three doors: door #1, door #2, and door #3. Behind one door is a million dollars. The other two doors contain worthless joke prizes. All you have to do is pick which door you want to open, and you get whatever is behind it. But you only get to open one door. By simple math, then, you obviously have a 1 in 3 chance of picking the correct door and becoming an instant millionaire.
You pick a door. As soon as you tell Monty (the gameshow host) what door you want to open, he stops and says, "Now I'm going to do what we always do in this game. Now that you've made your choice, I'm going to open one of the other two doors for you, one with a booby prize." Then he does so. Then he asks, "Okay, now, would you like to stay with your original guess, or would you like to switch to the other door that's still closed? You only get one shot, so do you want to stay with your original choice, or switch?"
So here's the brainteaser: is there any compelling reason to switch doors?
To be clear, there is no trickery, and Monty is not cheating. Furthermore, the money has not moved, will not be moved, and if you open the right door, you win the cash. The money is either behind the door you first picked, or behind the remaining unopened door that Monty chose not to show you. Should you switch?
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Answer: You should switch. You have a 1/3 chance of winning if you stick with your door. Notice that that's the same probability you had of winning before Monty took a door out of consideration. The chance that the prize was behind a door that you didn't choose was 2/3. Monty then takes one of those doors away, leaving the chance that the prize is behind the remaining unchosen door at 2/3.
This comment on Dean's site cleared it up for me:
Say you plan to change doors.
2/3 of the time, your first pick is wrong. When that happens, Monty HAS to show you the right door, as there is only one empty door for him to open, he opens it, and you choose the other door, which will necessarily have the prize.
1/3 of the time, your first pick is right, you change doors, and you're screwed.
So 2/3 of the time, you win.
Thanks for including that explanation after the jump. The little lightbulb just went on for me. I read that item on Ace last night and, like you, was sure it was wrong, even after reading a number of "explanations."
Posted by: Bud Norton | January 11, 2005 at 05:22 PM