Talk:Exchange paradox

message: * Merge There are apperently several articles conserning the same topic. I started at Necktie Paradox (which is a stub), which referes to Two envelope paradox which it rightfully suggested merged with Exchange paradox. I would suggest that all are merged into one article. --webdahl (talk) 12:45, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I redated the merge template to Feb 2010 as it appeared to be absent for some time. There is also the question of whether the articles have changed much since the original merge proposal. Given this, I think all the above could be irrelevant, so starting a new section for recent discussion seems appropriate. I will also take the opportunity to place a corresponding template on the other article, which it may have lacked. Melcombe (talk) 10:38, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree this merge should be done; the "Two envelope paradox" page is still somewhat of a mess and the topics are identical. Brainfsck (talk) 08:40, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

text:  The two envelopes article also suggest to swap the envelopes. If you find the math hard to follow, it doesn’t mean this article is necessarily a rubbish…  // stpasha » 
* Merge. Two articles are clearly on the same topic: the two envelopes problem starts with some “common-sense” reasoning and tries to argue why common sense fails here. The present article, exchange paradox goes one step further and asks what should be the proper way of reasoning in this setup. The topic however is still the same, so the articles' content should be merged.  // stpasha »  08:32, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

text: Very well put. I agree completely. Tomixdf (talk) 08:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry. It is possible both in the real world and in mathematical analysis to have a probability distribution that is *almost* constant over an infinite domain! And one reading of the exchange paradox (and I mean, a reading which is common in the literature) is that that is actually what the "author" of the argument had in mind. I am not writing this to promote Own Research, but I'ld like you to take a look at my preprint . Comments are welcome. I'm writing this paper as a service to the wikipedia community, not just pushing my own personal POV. I hope that the mathematical facts which are exposed there will be useful for editors since it is certainly clear that a lot of basic and elementary mathematical facts about these problems are not easy to find in reliable sources, precisely because they are so elementary that any professional easily finds them for themselves on the back of an envelope. However it is also amusing that many professionals made big mistakes. In the two envelopes context, it is the logarithm of the amount of money which should be taken as uniformly distributed on the whole real line (except, of course, that that is not possible), not the amount of money which should be taken as uniformly distributed on the positive half-line. Richard Gill (talk) 11:21, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: More merge discussion

message: I don't quite catch the meaning of this sentence:
For a finite discrete distribution of X the criterion cannot be satisfied at the maximal value of a, the other envelope must contain a/2. (The largest value which the smaller of the two amounts can take on, X, is a/2, and P(X = a) = 0.) 
Someone to explain this? Nijdam (talk) 16:05, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoever wrote this means that for a distribution with bounded support, the criterion cannot be satisfied at the upper limit of the support. If the largest possible (larger) amount is a, then when you see a in your envelope, you know for sure the other envelope contains a/2. Richard Gill (talk) 11:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Meaning 

message: I have redirected this page to the Two envelopes problem after a long discussion and a consensus to do so.  That article is being expanded and improved. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirected