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Door Number Three « Thought Catalog
They call it the Monty Hall Paradox. Back in the '60s and '70s, Let's Make a Deal was a popular game show. The host, Monty Hall, would present a random contestant with 3 doors or curtains, numbered 1, 2 and 3. Behind one was a prize, but crazy stuff like a year's supply of creamed corn would be behind the other two.
Contestants would pick one of the three doors and Monty would have the lovely stage girl open a different door that has a clunker behind it. Now there are only two doors and one had the real prize; the one the contestant selected or the other one. So far, this is pretty simple but here's the twist — Monty Hall asks the contestant if they would like to switch their choice to the other door. This is where it becomes a paradox. The contestants almost overwhelmingly stick with their first choice, even though elementary mathematical deduction shows that switching increases the odds of winning from 1/3 to 2/3. It's counterintuitive and most people think: There are two doors left, therefore I have a 50% chance of winning, no matter which one I pick, and they are scientifically proven to be wrong by relatively simple probability equations. It's even been tested. Look it up if you don't believe me.
I do this a lot — think about paradoxes that epitomize a predicament. The Monty Hall Paradox is one I think about a lot because I find myself or others making choices only to find out later they were not the correct or best one, even though it seemed, on the surface, to be a simple enough problem. Hindsight is 20/20, so they say.
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