Game show shenanigans: Monty Hall meets mathematical logic

DOI10.4171/EM/311MaRDI QIDQ509122zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Greg Morrow, Adam Salminen, Greg Oman

Publication date 8 February 2017

Published in Elemente der Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.4171/em/311

zbMATH Keywords

Boolean algebraMonty Hall problemone-player gameoptimal strategy

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Probabilistic games; gambling (91A60)

Review text

The authors consider two problems being modifications of the \textit{classical Monty Hall problem}. The first of them, called the `truth triad', has the following structure: A contestant is presented three doors labeled 1, 2, and 3. Further, the contestant is informed that behind one door is \$20,000, behind the other two doors is motor oil, and that all three doors are equally likely to contain the money. A door number is determined at random (but not told to the contestant) to house the cash. Monty (the host), who knows where the green is, randomly chooses a proposition \(\phi\) concerning the location of the cash (this will be made precise shortly). He then presents \(\phi\) to the contestant. The contestant, after a reasonable period of time to analyze \(\phi\) is presented with the truth value of \(\phi\) (true or false, relative to the randomly chosen door). She then chooses a door, after which Monty opens the chosen door and the contestant wins the prize which lies behind it. The second problem studied in the paper, called the `Full Monty', differs from the truth triad only by the assumption that now, there are no restrictions placed on how many doors have \$20,000 behind them, and all possibilities are equally likely. Both problems, the `truth triad' and the `Full Monty', have been described in an interesting way in the language of Boolean algebra, and the authors find for them the probability that the contestant playing his optimal strategy wins.

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Cites work

• Baumann on the Monty Hall problem and single-case probabilities
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5735061 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3467028 (Why is no real title available?)
• Positive operator valued measures and the quantum Monty Hall problem
• Should She Switch? A Game-Theoretic Analysis of the Monty Hall Problem
• Single-case probabilities and the case of Monty Hall: Levy's view
• The Monty Hall problem, reconsidered
• The Monty Hall problem. The remarkable story of math's most contentious brain teaser.
• The quantum monty hall problem
• Updating our beliefs about inconsistency: The Monty-Hall case

Cited in

(4)

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• The malicious host: a minimax solution of the Monty Hall problem

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