X-Message-Number: 7079 From: ( RON SELKOVITCH) Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 14:50:53, -0500 Subject: goats once more with feeling John Clark writes: <A simulation is no better than the program it is written in> Agreed, but it's interesting that simulations written independently still give the same result (1/3,2/3) <There are only 24 possibilities and I enumerated every one of them> Yes, but you assigned equal probabilities to each one of them and thats not the case.If you consider the first four possibilities in your list: <Possi- Car Goat Goat You Monty Winning bility Black White choose opens choice __________________________________________________ D O O R # A 1 2 3 1 2 Stick B 1 2 3 1 3 Stick C 1 2 3 2 3 Switch D 1 2 3 3 2 Switch> The choice of door 1 appears twice, while the others choices only appear once. The probabilities associated with lines A and B occuring should only be assigned half the probability of C or D. Then adding the total probabilities will give you the correct result. (1/3,2/3) My apologies to those who think that this subject is not appropriate to Cryonet, but a little diversion is sometimes welcome. Ron S Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7079