what are the chances?
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.
Fringe Festival season in Edinburgh. My friend A emails me to say a mutual friend, R, has had his house in central Edinburgh struck by lightning. His email title is "What are the chances?" So after sending a sympathetic email to R, I ponder on the improbability of lightning striking a medium height building in the middle of a city. I sleep a peaceful night and wake to iplayer on my iphone. Tune to Brian Cox's "Infinite Monkey Cage" but having already heard the latest episode I dozily click at random on an early episode. It's "Randomness, probability & chance" with guests Tim Minchin and Alex Bellos, saying how hard probability is for the layman to understand. Frequent jokes on the phrase "What are the chances of that?". Hmm...go downstairs for breakfast, idly pick up Saturday's Scotsman, glance at the Fringe reviews. First item is about a theatre piece "When it rains", about a mathematician having a run of bad luck, the tale explored in the light of probability theory. The closing sentence is - you've guessed it - "what are the chances of that?"
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Date submitted:Sun, 10 Aug 2014 22:44:45 +0000Coincidence ID:7699
