You know, I recently came across a story about Marilyn vos Savant, which is quite illustrative of how logic can differ from intuition. The woman made history not only because of her famous IQ of 228 but also because of a single answer in her column for Parade Magazine.

It all started in 1990 with the Monty Hall problem. A participant faces three doors: behind one is a car, behind the other two are goats. They choose a door, and the host opens one of the remaining doors to reveal a goat. The question is: should they switch? Marilyn vos Savant simply answered—yes, they should switch. And that’s when the controversy began.

She received over 10,000 letters criticizing her. Nearly a thousand from people with PhDs. 90% claimed she was wrong. But here’s the point: when you switch doors, the probability of winning is 2/3, and if you stick with the original choice, it’s only 1/3. This is pure mathematics.

It may seem strange, but later computer simulations at MIT and MythBusters experiments confirmed it. Marilyn vos Savant was right. Her IQ of 228 isn’t just a number; it’s a reflection of her ability to see the logic where most rely on intuition.

Interestingly, this story highlights the gap between what seems correct and what is actually correct. In her childhood, she faced serious difficulties and even had to leave the University of Washington to support her family business. But that didn’t stop her from creating her column Ask Marilyn in 1985, which became a platform for analyzing complex probability problems.

The Monty Hall problem remains a classic example of why you should trust the numbers, not first impressions. Marilyn vos Savant’s story and her IQ of 228 serve as a reminder of the power of logical thinking.