On the game show et´s Make a Deal, Monty Hall shows you three doors. Behind one of the doors is a new car, the other two hide goats. You choose one door, perhaps #1. Now Monty shows you what´s behind door #2 and it´s a goat.He gives you the chance to stay with original pick or select door #3. What do you do?
You should always abandon your original choice in favor of the remaining door (#3). When you make your first choice the chance of winning is 1 in 3 or 33%. When you switch doors, you turn a 2 in 3 chance of losing in the first round into a 2 in 3 chance of winning in the second round.
Search: Monty Hall problem
A farmer challenges an engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician to fence off the largest amount of area using the least amount of fence. The engineer made his fence in a circle and said it was the most efficient. The physicist made a long line and said that the length was infinite. Then he said that fencing half of the Earth was the best. The mathematician laughed at the others and with his design, beat the others. What did he do?
The mathematician made a small circular fence around himself and declared himself to be on the outside.
Even though the odds are always in favor of the gambling house, why does the establishment insist on a house limit on stakes?
Every casino in the world would go bankrupt without a house limit on stakes. Without it, gamblers would keep doubling their stakes until they won. No matter how bad a losing streak they were on, they would eventually win. For more information, search: Martingale
A monk leaves at sunrise and walks on a path from the front door of his monastery to the top of a nearby mountain. He arrives at the mountain summit exactly at sundown. The next day, he rises again at sunrise and descends down to his monastery, following the same path that he took up the mountain.
Assuming sunrise and sunset occured at the same time on each of the two days, prove that the monk must have been at some spot on the path at the same exact time on both days.
Imagine that instead of the same monk walking down the mountain on the second day, that it was actually a different monk. Let's call the monk who walked up the mountain monk A, and the monk who walked down the mountain monk B. Now pretend that instead of walking down the mountain on the second day, monk B actually walked down the mountain on the first day (the same day monk A walks up the mountain).
Monk A and monk B will walk past each other at some point on their walks. This moment when they cross paths is the time of day at which the actual monk was at the same point on both days. Because in the new scenario monk A and monk B MUST cross paths, this moment must exist.
It regulates our daily movements, but it feels no interest in our lives. It directs us when to come and go, but does not care if we pay attention. What is it?