Probability Paradoxes in Spreadsheets: Monty Hall, Birthdays, Simpson's & Base Rates
Monty Hall, the birthday paradox, Simpson's paradox, the base-rate fallacy, the gambler's fallacy, Bertrand's box, St. Petersburg and regression to the mean: 8 labs where a spreadsheet proves what intuition gets wrong.
The first lesson is free — no account needed.
About this course
A probability paradoxes course that settles eight famous puzzles by counting and calculating in a spreadsheet, for students, teachers, data analysts, puzzle fans and anyone preparing for quant interview questions. You enumerate all nine Monty Hall cases and see why switching wins two times out of three, build the birthday table with PRODUCT and find the group size where a shared birthday becomes more likely than not, watch a basketball ranking flip with Simpson's paradox, screen 100,000 people with a "99% accurate" test and count the false positives, show that a coin has no memory and that a streak of five heads is common, solve Bertrand's box and the boy-or-girl puzzle with COUNTIFS, price the St. Petersburg game with a cap and log utility, and see the best scores drop on a retest. Fictional examples, educational only. The first lab is free.
Lessons
- Monty Hall: Enumerate Every Case, Then Stay or SwitchFree
- The Birthday Paradox: A PRODUCT Table and Its S-Curve Pro
- Simpson's Paradox: Better in Every Group, Worse Overall Pro
- The Base-Rate Fallacy: A 99% Test That Is Usually Wrong Pro
- The Gambler's Fallacy: Independence and How Common Streaks Really Are Pro
- Bertrand's Box & the Boy-or-Girl Paradox: Conditioning by Counting Pro
- The St. Petersburg Paradox: Infinite Expected Value, Tiny Price Pro
- Regression to the Mean: Why the Best Scores Drop on a Retest Pro