From Darren Smith
Your article about probability which featured the Monty Hall problem – in which you have to pick a door from a choice of three in the hope of winning a car, and are then offered the chance to switch after one of the remaining two is opened to reveal to a goat – prompted me think about quantum superposition (13 December 2014, p 38).
With three doors, the odds of picking the one with the car are 1 in 3. When Monty Hall opens another door to reveal one of the two goats, switching from your original choice of door increases the odds of getting the car to 2 in 3, even though all other factors remain unchanged.
I can’t help thinking that there’s a link to quantum mechanics, in that an indirect measurement (in this case, opening another door to reveal a goat) can alter the probability of a particular outcome, one that you would assume is predetermined.
Horsham, West Sussex, UK
