Dear Tom and Ray:

I particularly enjoyed the Let's Make a Deal puzzler as it supports my long-held belief that life's most perplexing questions can often be answered by the careful scrutiny of the mystic dynamism revealed in TV game shows.

The answer: ALWAYS SWITCH

If one stays with the original curtain choice, the odds remain at one-in-three since nothing has changed. Monty can always show a zonk whether one picked the correct curtain or not. But he has given valuable information by showing a zonk. By making a new choice, i.e. switching, the odds improve two-in-three. It's like switching to both of the other two original choices.

The puzzler illustrates a valuable principle too frequently ignored in the making of life's important decisions. For example, suppose a young woman considers marriage proposals from three apparently equal suitors. After making a relatively random choice, she marries one of the suitors. Later she reads in one of her favorite periodicals, (Forgotten Bride), that only one man in three makes a good husband. Then she learns from a girlfriend that one of the suitors she didn't marry has already failed miserably in a weak attempt to be an adequate husband. (He's a zonk.) What should she do? Quite obviously she should surprise her beloved husband with a request for an immediate divorce and marry the remaining suitor, if he is still available. Courageous decisions like this won't guarantee happiness, but the odds will be greatly improved. Who says mathematics can't solve social problems!

This puzzler has inspired me to resume serious work on my long-neglected game show theory. You might keep an eye out for two of my books in progress:

The Natural Prediction of Natural Disasters by Neural Network Analysis of Wheel-of-Fortune Spins, and

Lee Harvey and Bill (Cullen): The Truth Behind the Price Is Right/Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy

Owen Austrheim (pronounce osst rime)
Phoenix, AZ

[ Previous Letter | Letters Index ]