The Untold Truth Of Marilyn Vos Savant

In a 1990 "Ask Marilyn" column, vos Savant waded into one of the great mathematical controversies of the time: the so-called "Monty Hall Problem." "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 #1, and

In a 1990 "Ask Marilyn" column, vos Savant waded into one of the great mathematical controversies of the time: the so-called "Monty Hall Problem."

"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 #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?" a reader asked, presenting vos Savant with a mathematical thought experiment that had been around in various forms for decades prior.

Without getting too deeply into the mathematics of it all, suffice to say that the solution offered by Marilyn (yes, you should switch), which is indeed the correct solution, seems counterintuitive to most people.

It also seemed counterintuitive to more than 10,000 readers, some of whom with advanced degrees in mathematics, who sent her angry letters accusing her of being wrong, as Priceonomics reported. "How many irate mathematicians are needed to get you to change your mind?," wrote one angry Ph.D. Vos Savant wrote two follow-up columns explaining why she was right, yet still failed to convince some readers.

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