public understanding of mathematics
Innumeracy costs UK taxpayers up to £2.4 billion a year.
The UK Statistics Authority fulfills its duty to keep the government honest
Exhibition design is not a career that the mathematically inclined tend to think about, let alone pursue. Barry Phipps is the first interdisciplinary fellow with the Kettle's Yard gallery in Cambridge. His remit is to develop projects of an interdisciplinary nature — "to find the common ground between things." Whilst most people think that art and science are two completely separate
non-overlapping areas of human endeavour, Phipps does not see it this way.
What's the risk of passive smoking? Or climate change? How big is the terrorist threat? And should we trust league tables? These issues concern all of us, but it's not always easy to make sense of the barrage of media information. David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, gives Plus his take on uncertainty.
Plus celebrates its tenth birthday this year. Former editor and present executive editor of Plus, Robert Hunt, explores how maths popularisation in general, and Plus in particular, have changed over the last ten years.
One hundred years ago, in 1905, Albert Einstein changed physics forever with his special theory of relativity. Since then his name — and hair do — have become synonymous with genius. John D Barrow looks at Einstein as a media star.