People around the world were shocked when Hillary Clinton, ahead in many polls, didn’t end up the U.S.‘ president-elect. But that doesn’t mean the polls themselves were wrong.
How does your brain deal with the ambiguous and variable visual information your eyes collect? Neuroscientists think it bets on what’s the most likely version of reality.
The first digits of numbers in a data set aren’t distributed equally. And now you know more than a lot of fraudsters do – and should – when they’re making up their phony numbers.
Preventing crime before it happens, while saving resources, sounds like a great use of big data. But these calculated probabilities raise big questions about civil liberties.
The gerrymandered district has been part of the US political landscape for two centuries. Impartial math suggests several methods for drawing fair, competitive congressional districts.
Unpredictability is omnipresent in life, from dealing playing cards, through contracting an illness or getting promoted, to the rise or fall of equity markets. For those attempting to make the calls on…
As notorious weather predictions go, the “barbecue summer” of 2009 is up there with Michael Fish’s dismissal of the incoming 1987 hurricane. The summer turned out to be wet and windy, and questions were…
That the Malaysian government, with the help of the UK’s INMARSAT, was able to dramatically narrow down the search area for flight MH370, made it seem much more likely that the wreckage of the plane might…
In the lead up to the release next month of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Fifth Assessment Report we are exploring concepts of confidence and certainty in climate science. You…
How many people do you have to put into a room before you are guaranteed that at least two of them share a birthday? We all know and love the blissful feeling of winning an argument. Well, trust me, that’s…
The game show host adjusts his bow tie and flashes you an oh-so-wicked smile as he brings your attention to three closed doors. “Behind one of these doors is the prize of your dreams!” he announces excitedly…
Imagine a six-sided die with four red faces, one green face and one blue face. I am going to roll the die, and before rolling I will ask you to predict which colour it will land on: red, green or blue…