About Us
Posted April 29th, 2008 by gmp26
What is this site?
This site is produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim is to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining! However we also acknowledge that uncertainty is not just a matter of working out numerical chances, and aim for an appropriate balance between qualitative and quantitative insights.
Who are we?
The current team comprises David Spiegelhalter, Mike Pearson, Hauke Riesch, Owen Smith and Arciris Garay-Arevalo. However we are always looking for people who would like to contribute material to this site, and you will get proper acknowledgement.
What do the 'dots' mean?
You will see that the 'stories' are structured at multiple 'levels' corresponding to difficulty. For pages with mathematical content, these levels correspond roughly to
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No maths, just pictures and text for general readership -
Basic arithmetic, at around GCSE level (up to aged 16). -
Some algebra, probability distributions, basic statistical concepts at around A level (ages 16 to 18) -
Full mathematical exposition, at university level.
Non-mathematical pages also have different levels according to their conceptual difficulty
What does the logo mean?
Watch an animation on our logo
What do we mean by 'uncertainty'?
This tricky question is discussed in Uncertainty - what do we mean?. Our site name Understanding Uncertainty, is shared by an excellent recent book by Dennis Lindley
