With April on its way out, it behooves me to take a moment and mention the focus of this year’s Mathematics Awareness Month. April has been bestowed with this glorious title every year since 1986 – last year the topic was Mathematics and Voting, which I discussed at some length in three earlier posts (see . . . → Read More: Mathematics Awareness Month 2009
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I’m not sure, but this seems like a good candidate for a new bar. According to a recent study out of the University of Washington, as many as half of the population may fail to understand simple probability statements, in the context of weather forecasts. Here’s the summary: If, for example, a forecast calls for a 20 . . . → Read More: How Low Can We Go? Like the dawn of a new day, the start of the baseball season carries with it tremendous promise. These first few weeks provide a reprieve from the breakneck pace of March Madness, where every team is burdened with the knowledge that one loss is all it takes to prevent it from total victory. Instead, . . . → Read More: Ballpark Mathematics For those who don’t believe we can actually use math to fight crime, the story of Harry Markopolos, the man who blew the whistle on Bernie Madoff, shows that a dream of using math to catch criminals need not be untenable. In a recent interview for 60 Minutes, Mr. Markopolos describes how he harnessed the . . . → Read More: Numb3rs in Real Life I made my reservations fairly clear regarding the double dose of math holidays last month. Despite my objections, I remained confident that the headlines they gathered would quickly fade away, and I wouldn’t have to worry about these faux math headlines for the next 12 months. In this way, I was able to sleep . . . → Read More: Numerology Goes on Holiday (Again) |
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