news
Maths for the broken-hearted
A mathematical understanding of what makes our hearts beat could save lives.
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Understanding uncertainty: how psychic was Paul?
England's performance in the World Cup last summer was thankfully overshadowed by the attention given to Paul the octopus, who was reported as making an unbroken series of correct predictions of match winners. David Spiegelhalter looks at Paul's performance in an attempt to answer the question that…
news
Fighting the coronavirus
As the world prepares for the worst, we explore the maths that can help us stop a pandemic.
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The inequalities of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified the differences between us. Understanding these inequalities is crucial for this and future pandemics.
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The DAG behind the data
How do you discern cause and effect when you can't do a controlled experiment? Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) are a fun and important tool.
career
Career interview: IT project manager - Olympic Games
Travel, money, meeting new people, living in new cultures, and a whole lot of sport — that's where maths has lead Jamie Clarke, an IT project manager who specialises in international sport projects such as the recent Winter Olympics in Torino. Jamie tells Plus how he went from engineering to the Olympics.
career
Career interview: Financial modelling
David Spaughton and Anton Merlushkin work for Credit Suisse First Boston, where they provide traders in the hectic dealing room with software based on complicated mathematical models of the financial markets. PASS Maths interviewed them at their offices in Canary Wharf in London.
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Understanding uncertainty: Infinite monkey business
David Spiegelhalter explains that waiting for an infinite number of monkeys to produce the complete works of Shakespeare is not just a probabilistic certainty, it also gives us an insight into how long we can expect to wait for a rare event to happen.
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On the ball
If your team scores first in a football match, how likely is it to win? And when is it worth committing a professional foul? John Haigh shows us how to use probability to answer these and other questions, and explains the implications for the rules of the game.
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Mathematical mysteries: The gentlemen from Basle and the Petersburg Paradox
Just over 220 years have passed since the death of one of the most distinguished mathematicians in history: Daniel Bernoulli, who died on March 17th, 1782. The name of Bernoulli asks for precision since the family from Basle produced no fewer than eight outstanding mathematicians within three…
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Be clear, be trustworthy
When it comes to communicating maths or science that some people find hard to accept, you cannot take your audience's trust for granted. Instead you have to be trustworthy.