The message in ley lines

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was 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.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Tom Scott has a marvellous web page, click here, that lets you check whether the place you live is on an ancient mystical energy highway. At least, it does if you live in England. If not, you can try one of the example postcodes he gives, or indeed the postcode of UU HQ here in Cambridge, CB3 0WB. Just don't forget to check the important warning that Tom gives after you've got your results.

There's a serious point to this from the point of view of Understanding Uncertainty. (Of course - would I have posted this otherwise?) If someone is telling you something about risk or randomness (or just about anything else, actually), you should always ask yourself what you're not being told. This isn't some sort of global conspiracy theory, just that whenever you get information, there must have been some process to decide what was included and what wasn't. It's always worth thinking about how that was done (and why).

Here endeth the sermon.

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