1, 2 or 3?
A quizmaster, three doors, two goats, the grand prize and you. You have reached the final round of a quiz show and can now choose one of the three doors. Behind one door is the main prize and behind the other two are two goats. You choose door 1, the quizmaster opens door 3 and there is a goat. He then asks you if you want to stay with door 1 or switch to door 2. How do you decide?
The "goat problem" is a famous dilemma in probability theory that many mathematicians have racked their brains over in the past. Assuming that the quizmaster always opens a door with a goat - and that this happens completely independently of your choice - you should switch in the sense of mathematics. In this case, the initial 1/3 chance of winning increases to 2/3. However, if you don't know the quizmaster's intentions, you should always trust your knowledge of human nature in such an offer....
Learn more about such dilemmas and how such considerations can help you in your studies in the Maths units from our students!
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