A chance Paragraph
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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.
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Dear Mr Spiegelhalter,
I just watched the documentary "Tails you win", on television. I must say I found it extremely interesting, as a free lance musician I am destined to have performances where despite the years of honing my craft, I play less then what I am easily capapble of.
Anyway, after finishing the documentary, I began to read my book, 2666 by Roberto Bolano.
I quote;
" This time the advance he sent Archimboldi was bigger than any previous advance, in fact so large that Martha, the secretary, before mailing the check to Cologne, brought it into Mr Bubis' office and asked (not once but twice) whether the sum was correct, to which Mr Bubis answered yes, it was, or it wasn't, what did it matter, a sum, he thought when he was alone again, is always approximate, there is no such thing as a correct sum, only Nazis and teachers of elementary mathematics believed in correct sums, only sectarians, madmen, tax collectors (God rot them), numerologists who read one's fortune for next to nothing believed in correct sums. Scientists, meanwhile, knew that all numbers were only approximate. Great physicists, great mathimaticians, great chemists, and pubilshers knew that one was always feeling one's way in the dark"
An observation on probability? Directly after finishing your show and opening the book?
Weird
Date submitted:Tue, 08 Dec 2015 00:50:39 +0000Coincidence ID:8318
