You have 3 doors to choose from, one with J'Love Hewett behind it, and the other two with sticks behind them.

Question

You pick door two, hoping it's the door with Jennifer Love Hewett behind it. Now, if your mom, who already knows where Jennifer Love Hewett is, opens another door (say door one) showing you one of the two sticks, are your chances better she's behind your door or the other unopened door (door three) "after" mom shows you one of the the sticks?

The answer to follow.

Looks like some people here seems to feel that Jennifer Love Hewett seems to have the same measurements as a stick... To this I say "Only if the stick has two really big knots on it, and gorgeous eyes."

Answer 1

You should switch. Or rather, the chances are better behind the door that your mom didn't open because now you have more information.

Before, you had a 1/3 chance. If you switch, you have a 2/3 chance because you get the right door if you had picked incorrectly to begin with.

Answer 2

When you first pick a door, you have a 1/3 chance that you picked Jennifer Love Hewitt. Stated another way, there is a 2/3 chance that she is behind one of the two doors that you *didn't* pick.

So essentially your mother is asking you if you'd like to switch to the other *two* doors. She's showing you one as empty (or with a stick, if you prefer), so if Jennifer Love Hewitt was behind one of those two doors, she will be behind the remaining unopened door. You should switch.

So you are doubling your odds from the original 1/3 chance to 2/3 chance. This is the correct answer.

Here's another way to look at it:

There are 3 ways that the doors could be arranged:
JLH behind door #1, 2 and 3 have sticks.
JLH behind door #2, 1 and 3 have sticks.
JLH behind door #3, 1 and 2 have sticks.

In case 1, your mother would open door #3 and show the stick. If you switched, you would get JLH behind door #1.
In case 2, your mother could open door 1 (or 3), and if you switched, you would *not* get JLH.
In case 3, your mother would open door #1 and show the stick. If you switched, you would get JLH behind door #3.

As you can see, two of the three (2/3) outcomes when you switch are favorable. But if you "stick" with your door (pun intended) you'll only have a 1/3 chance.

You can test this as follows. Get 3 cards from a deck, let's say the Queen of Hearts (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and two black deuces (sticks). Now shuffle them up, put one aside. This is represents your original choice. Now look at the other two cards and discard one of the twos (there must be at least one). This represents switching and opening a door. If you are left with the Queen of Hearts, count this as getting JLH. If you still have a two, count this as losing. If you do the experiment several times, you'll find that 2/3 of the time when you switch, you end up with the Queen. It's not 33.33% or even 50%, it's 66.67% on the average.

So if you want to maximize your odds, switch doors when your Mom offers. You'll have a 2/3 chance of getting the lovely Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Answer 3

Maybe I'm missing something in the 1/3 2/3 logic, but it seems that once a door was revealed to have a stick, either of the other two doors would have a 2/3 chance of being right, because 1/3 has already been proven wrong. So changing would not help.

I would keep my door. If JLH was behind one of the doors I did not pick my momma would just show me where she was rather than show me a stick.

Answer 4

The other door.

Each door has a 33.3% chance of having Hewett behind the door.
When your mom reviles the stick, she changes the probability that the other door has to 66.6% (since yours is part of the original "1/3" population, yours is unchanged). So you will have more luck.

But my question to you is, how do you tell the difference between Jennifer Love Hewett and a stick? Their both Tall, Skinny and Flat on all sides! ;-)

Answer 5

I don't know if this was what you meant, but: "chances [ ] she's behind your door or the other unopened door (door three) "after" mom shows you one of the the sticks" to me, means "the probability JLH is behind one of the two remaining doors". The operative word is "or". Unless I have snatched her first, the probability is 100%.

EDIT: Okay, I researched the problem and saw that there is the possibility of "switching". Now I get what you meant and the answer. But since I had to cheat, I'll leave it at that. (Oh! By the way, no one is getting her... I already have her secured behind 3 LOCKED doors.)

Answer 6

I believe it is the other unopened door pal, then again it's 50-50 perhaps.
Sorry but in my opinion this question or this somewhat sort of riddle does not fit into my liking. LOL and why would I hope for her behind a door? DO i get a Prize??!. Sorry Don't mean to make anyone upset.

Answer 7

The odds are equal that she is behind door two or door three, as in the example. The flaw in the logic mentioned in the source is that the probability of the stick being behind your door decreases to 1/2 when your mom opens one of the doors.

Answer 8

Which regulation(s) are you speaking about precisely? homestead bill one 0 one: The no peanut butter fellatio regulation? Senate bill 207: The no sex with more effective than 2 human beings regulation? per chance you're speaking about guidelines that were on the books for one hundred years or more effective. Sorry, did no longer have some thing to do with those. Agreed, even if, governments haven't any organisation regulating what is going on contained in the sex lives of consenting adults (assuming all are able to consenting). in case you're utilising sexual sex as a synonym for marriage, even if, governments might want to modify what passes for state known marriage.

Answer 9

Switch doors! Your odds improve from 1/3 to 2/3!

Answer 10

I don't see any difference between Jennifer Love Hewett and the sticks.