Monty Hall on Let's Make a Deal had a three door challenge in which behind one of three doors was a car with booby prizes behind the other two. You picked one of the doors. Then Monty would show you what was behind one of the two remaining doors. Then he would give you a choice, stick with your first choice or switch to the remaining door.

You can win the car 66% of the time. How?

(05-28-2014 05:46 PM)Paul M Wrote:  Monty Hall on Let's Make a Deal had a three door challenge in which behind one of three doors was a car with booby prizes behind the other two. You picked one of the doors. Then Monty would show you what was behind one of the two remaining doors. Then he would give you a choice, stick with your first choice or switch to the remaining door.

You can win the car 66% of the time. How?

I remember seeing this before, I don't remember the exact answer but the trick is to always stick to the one you picked originally?

(05-28-2014 05:51 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 05:44 PM)Kruciff Wrote:  Was there an image involved.

I think there was. I wasn't actually putting it out there to solve, but I'm sure I can find the image if you really want to lol.

Sure, I'm pretty sure I nailed the general solution (just need to look up the specifics of buoyancy). The image will allow someone to solve it finitely.

(05-28-2014 05:46 PM)Paul M Wrote:  Monty Hall on Let's Make a Deal had a three door challenge in which behind one of three doors was a car with booby prizes behind the other two. You picked one of the doors. Then Monty would show you what was behind one of the two remaining doors. Then he would give you a choice, stick with your first choice or switch to the remaining door.

You can win the car 66% of the time. How?

I understood that at one time but forgot. It's after work and I don't want to think any more today LOL.

(05-28-2014 06:00 PM)smudge12 Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 05:53 PM)Kruciff Wrote:  Sure, I'm pretty sure I nailed the general solution (just need to look up the specifics of buoyancy). The image will allow someone to solve it finitely.

Here's the whole thing:



A vessel for a special experiment has a hollow cylinder for its upper part and a solid hemisphere for its lower part. What must the total weight of the vessel be if it is to sit upright, submerged to a depth of 0.8m (measured from the bottom of the vessel), in a fluid having a specific gravity of 2.1?

Remove the air buoyancy part and equate the weight to the buoyant force acting on the entire mass and you got the answer.

FYI... The Monty Hall solution is to change your choice.

(05-28-2014 06:04 PM)UM2001GRAD Wrote:  FYI... The Monty Hall solution is to change your choice.

Yep. Always change your choice.

33% chance you picked the right door. 66% it's one of the other 2. Monty throws out 1 of them, still 66% your choice is wrong.

Try it yourself

(05-28-2014 06:51 PM)Paul M Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 06:04 PM)UM2001GRAD Wrote:  FYI... The Monty Hall solution is to change your choice.

Yep. Always change your choice.

33% chance you picked the right door. 66% it's one of the other 2. Monty throws out 1 of them, still 66% your choice is wrong.

Try it yourself

Alright, did it 3 times and won 2 cars! I did stats in scrool, but help me out here. Why wouldn't it now be 50/50? Or, why not 66% your choice it right?

And yes, it's late, so you holier than thou math dorks trying to make a political point over something as dumb as one equation can give it a rest. just looking for a little explanation here as I find this mildly interesting/amusing.

Okay, read the site a bit. It's a little less cut and dry than I was thinking so yea, there's a pretty big qualifier in there.

33% you pick the right door out of the three. 66% the car is behind one of the other two. You don't have to care about both of those two, if the car is behind either of them, you win.

(05-28-2014 08:36 PM)Paul M Wrote:  33% you pick the right door out of the three. 66% the car is behind one of the other two. You don't have to care about both of those two, if the car is behind either of them, you win.

Okay, and it worked when I won my cars...

But why doesn't it become a 50/50 chance at pick two? Why not behind the original pick? IOW's why does switching that choice make it more probable?

This should be of more help

(05-28-2014 09:02 PM)Paul M Wrote:  This should be of more help

Yea, okay it gets back to the qualifier I mentioned above. That skews it entirely then. Otherwise...

(05-27-2014 10:32 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 03:06 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  So would one say, "The staff wants a raise" or "The staff want a raise"?

The media lately seems to use the latter, but I'm pretty sure the former is correct. At least that's how it used to be.

If you ever watch a British broadcast if a sporting event you'll spot this little peculiarity. Examples:

Arsenal have one the FA Cup.

Tottenham are never going to make the UCL.

It's all about collective nouns. If you substitute the word "police" in place of "staff" you'd probably come up with a different conclusion.

It should be a "singular" verb in the above examples, because you've gone from individuals to a single group.

Unfortunately even the English language is getting butchered by even the English.

(The Team from) Arsenal has won the FA Cup
(the Team from) Tottenham is never going to make the UCL.

UK treats collective nouns as plural, USA treats them as singular. Very simple.

(05-27-2014 10:50 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 10:32 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 03:06 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  So would one say, "The staff wants a raise" or "The staff want a raise"?

The media lately seems to use the latter, but I'm pretty sure the former is correct. At least that's how it used to be.

If you ever watch a British broadcast if a sporting event you'll spot this little peculiarity. Examples:

Arsenal have one the FA Cup.

Tottenham are never going to make the UCL.

It's all about collective nouns. If you substitute the word "police" in place of "staff" you'd probably come up with a different conclusion.

I see it all the time on American broadcasts too. Police is a good example of an exception, are there any others though?

Police qualifies.. because you're not talking about a single unit. You're talking about individual police officers at one time.

Same thing with People. YOu're not referring to a specific group of people, you're referring to people individually, but lumped together.


For Example: if you were talking about the New York Yankees (to pick a random team).

The New York Yankees are ... You're describing the Yankees.
New York is... You're still describing the Yankees.

The difference is which noun you're using to identify the team.

(05-28-2014 08:44 PM)JMUDunk Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 08:36 PM)Paul M Wrote:  33% you pick the right door out of the three. 66% the car is behind one of the other two. You don't have to care about both of those two, if the car is behind either of them, you win.

Okay, and it worked when I won my cars...

But why doesn't it become a 50/50 chance at pick two? Why not behind the original pick? IOW's why does switching that choice make it more probable?

It depends on which way you look at it... I remember this in a statistics type class.

Officially it does become a 50/50 chance, if you're looking at each elmination as a separate situation. However, when you look at it from the original equation:

You've still got three choices, except you know what one of the choices would have been, and you've thus know that 'bad choice' A is out of the equation, you've gone from a 1/3 chance to a 2/3 chance by swapping.

I like the 1000 door example. You pick one door. 998 of the remainder are eliminated. You can keep your first choice or take the last of the 999. Are you really ever going to stick with your 1000 to 1 first choice?

(05-28-2014 09:11 PM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 10:32 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(05-27-2014 03:06 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  So would one say, "The staff wants a raise" or "The staff want a raise"?

The media lately seems to use the latter, but I'm pretty sure the former is correct. At least that's how it used to be.

If you ever watch a British broadcast if a sporting event you'll spot this little peculiarity. Examples:

Arsenal have one the FA Cup.

Tottenham are never going to make the UCL.

It's all about collective nouns. If you substitute the word "police" in place of "staff" you'd probably come up with a different conclusion.

It should be a "singular" verb in the above examples, because you've gone from individuals to a single group.

Unfortunately even the English language is getting butchered by even the English.

(The Team from) Arsenal has won the FA Cup
(the Team from) Tottenham is never going to make the UCL.

But there is no team from Arsenal. It's the group and a group in the Queen's English is counted as plural.

The Oxford dictionary only has rules for certain words in this regard. We seem to be more rigid.

Prior to the Civil War, the term United States was pleural ....i.e. The US ARE a great country