Welcome to Understanding Uncertainty

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Posted November 29th, 2007 by david
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Welcome to the site that tries to make sense of chance, risk, luck, uncertainty and probability. Mathematics won't tell us what to do, but we think that understanding the numbers can help us deal with our own uncertainty and allow us to look critically at stories in the media.

  • We're supporting an exciting schools programme led by Nadia Baker of the Millennium Mathematics Project called What are the Odds? - the Hands on Risk and Probability Show. Follow the link for more information and to find out how to get your school involved.
  • Venturing into video one late Summer day, we pointed a couple of cameras at David delivering a dozen short talks on the issues explored in our animations. As we edit these, we're releasing them on the undunc channel on YouTube - about once a week. Do have a look and subscribe to the channel.
  • We're very happy to welcome our first two guest authors to Understanding Uncertainty. Pelham Barton opens with an analysis of the Indian Premier League revealing another example of a league table dominated by chance. Vincent Scheurer in his article Convicted on Statistics? documents the misunderstandings and fallacies that led to tragic miscarriages of justice in the case of Sally Clark, Barry George and others. Vincent highlights the difficulties that are often encountered with naive interpretations of statistical evidence.
  • A recurring theme when looking at league tables is to determine how much is due to chance. Ian Short's new animation for football allows you to do exactly this. Feed it the chance of a home win, an away win, and a draw and see how the simulated league develops.
  • At the end of the last football season, David ventured to predict the outcome of the last games using just such a technique. The results were surprisingly good. We hear rumours there were monetary gains despite David's warnings! Take a look at One Game to Play and the predictions published by the BBC Radio 4 More or Less website.

There will be a lot more things appearing - see About Us.