Brain games mental exercise for the intellectual minded?

WELCOME TO PUZZLES-ONLINE-NICHE

Are brain games truly only for the intelligentsia?

More commonly referred to as brain teasers, they have been around for centuries , one of the earliest game enthusiasts was Archimedes, who devised many mathematical problems for his contemporaries to solve.

Logic puzzles and riddles are specific types of brain teasers.

So brain games are a form of puzzle which requires thought to solve. However some require

unconventional methods of solving, like lateral thinking, because the difficulty of many brain

teasers rely on a certain misconception of our mind's intuitiveness,

(that which we know without thinking or reasoning).

If you would like some fun puzzles to solve skip down to the section entitled BRAIN GAMES FUN.

Monty Hall Paradox

The Monty Hall paradox is a good example of a brain teaser. It is a problem based on probability,

and is a veridical ( Coinciding with future events or apparently unknowable present realities) paradox, because although the result appears strange (counter-intuitive), it is demonstrably true.

(like most brain games it can be mind-bending ). Monty's Brain Game goes something like this:

Monty Hall Paradox:

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 No. 1 [but the door is not opened], and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?"

Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?

(Intuitive answer:) Well now that Monty has so graciously shown us that we can eliminate door #3, intuitively it would seem our chances are now 50-50, being only 2 doors remain.Thus to choose to switch now really wouldn't matter, as we have an equal chance of winning----or so it seemsl.

The correct answer is that We should ALWAYS switch to the other door. What? Why? How? (you may say.)

Well it requires a bit of math, but the solution goes like this:

When we had three choices , we actually had a 1 in 3 chance of winning the car, so a player who initially chooses door 1 and doesn't switch his choice has a 1 in 3 chance of winning, while a player who switches from door 1 to door 2 now has a 2 in 3 chance.( The host has removed an incorrect option from the unchosen doors, so those contestants who switch double their chances of winning .)

Intuition fails us successfully!

Here is a graphical solution:

The three possible arrangements of one car and two goats behind three doors and the result of staying or switching after initially picking Door 1 in each case:

Behind door 1	Behind door 2	Behind door 3	Result if staying with door 1	Result if switching to the door offered
Car	goat	goat	Car	goat	Case a : door 1 contains Car. (the only case you lose if you switch)
goat	Car	goat	goat	Car	Case b, c : door 1 contains goat. You lose if you don't switch.
goat	goat	Car	goat	Car
			1/3	2/3	Your chances of winning

The Monty Hall problem has attracted academic interest because the result is surprising and the problem is interesting to formulate. Furthermore, variations of the Monty Hall problem are made by changing the implied assumptions, and the variations can have drastically different consequences. For example, if Monty only offered the contestant a chance to switch when the contestant had initially chosen the car, then the contestant should never switch.

There we have it a brain game of epic proportions, when what appeared to be so intuitively correct, turned out to be so miserably wrong.This is the beauty of Brain games- they tend to go against our brain's wiring.

Consider a further example of a brain game:

Mary's Father has five daughters their names are : nana, nene, nini, nono and ____.

Well we detect a pattern here simply using the vowels, the fifth daughter's name should be NUNU correct?

Solution: Look at the beginning of the riddle: Mary's Father, therefore the fifth daughter is named Mary!

Oh by the way to answer our intiial question, brain games are not just for the intelligent ones, they are for everyone, by exercising our brains we can stave off the consequences of aging, if only for a short while.

So relax, take a deep breath and remember ALWAYS Keep your brain working!!

If you enjoyed the puzzles above click below for some more

Brain Games Fun