Portal:Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of representing and reasoning about abstract objects (such as numbers, points, spaces, sets, structures, and games). Mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics, the branch of mathematics concerned with application of mathematical knowledge to other fields, inspires and makes use of new mathematical discoveries and sometimes leads to the development of entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, and practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered. (Full article...)
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In search of a new car, the player picks door 1. The game host then opens door 3 to reveal a goat and offers to let the player pick door 2 instead of door 1. Image credit: Cepheus |
The Monty Hall problem is a puzzle involving probability similar to the American game show Let's Make a Deal. The name comes from the show's host, Monty Hall. A widely known, but problematic (see below) statement of the problem is from Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990, column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick).
Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
The problem is also called the Monty Hall paradox; it is a veridical paradox in the sense that the solution is counterintuitive, although the problem does not yield a logical contradiction. (Full article...)
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