It's Wednesday! This calls for some brain-breaky statistics fun.

First, the Birthday Paradox, which is a great party trick (you can probably win yourself a beer or two on this one). In a room with 23 people in it, there's about a 50% chance that two of them will have the same birthday. In a room with 75 people, there's a 99.9% chance that two of them will have the same birthday. Whaaaaaat.

( If your brain just freaked out a bit at that thought, you're not alone. )

And for something completely different but equally brain-breaky, the Monty Hall problem, named after the host of Let's Make a Deal. Let's say you're on a game show, and there are three doors in front of you. Behind one of them is a car, and behind the other two are, I dunno, goats or something. The host asks you which door you think the car is behind. You say "Door number one, please!" The host opens door number three to reveal a goat, and asks if you're still going to stand by your guess of door number one, or switch to door number two.

Seems like a silly question, right? You'd expect to win 50% of the time whether you switched your guess or not. Well, as it turns out, if you change your answer, your odds of winning go up to 67%.

( Seriously, this one makes my head hurt. )

And that's your statistical brain-bogglery for today.

Edit: You can simulate the Monty Hall problem here!