Nov. 18/08 Per. C 10 Math

Today was the first day of our probability unit so we started the unit by looking at a very familiar math problem called the Monty Hall problem (stick or switch on this page).

The game goes like this: You are show three doors and behind one of the doors is a grand prize, the other two doors lead to some real losers. To play the game, select a door without opening it. "Monty" then reveals what is behind one of the two doors that you didn't select. You are then given the option to stick with your original selection or switch to the other door.

The students played this game with each other about 20 times and tracked how many times they won and whether they switched or stayed with their original choice. Following that we collected our class data and graphed the results.

This gave us the opportunity to talk about what we originally thought and what our results might be. We found by looking at our data that by switching doors, we won more often. After that, we ran a simulator online that played 999 times for each scenario; switching doors and not switching doors.

This verified our class results that it is better to switch doors than to stay on our original choice. In the coming days we will discuss some of the applications of this type of math. Stay tuned...