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mathematics in the media
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Article

Editorial

Guilty until proven innocent: The use of libel laws in science

Article

Understanding uncertainty: The many ways of spinning risk

Would you prefer a game with a 90% chance of winning, or one with a 10% chance of losing? You might scratch your head and say it's the same thing, and you'd be right, but research has shown that people's perception of risk is surprisingly vulnerable to the way it's presented. In this article David Spiegelhalter and Mike Pearson explore how risk can be spun and there's an interactive animation for you to have a go yourself.

Article

Maths, madness and movies

In the movies mathematicians are mostly mad. Since here at Plus we firmly believe in our sanity, we're puzzled as to why. So we charged Charlotte Mulcare with the unenviable task of sifting through five well-known maths movies and speculate towards an answer.
Article

Editorial

  • I need maths like a carburettor recalibration
  • The 118 188 challenge
Article
Tiger face

The tiger that isn't: numbers in the media

NHS budgets, third world debt, predictions of global warming, inflation, Iraqi war dead, the decline of fish stocks or hedgehogs, the threat of cancer — there's hardly a subject people care about that comes without measurements, forecasts, rankings, statistics, targets, numbers of every variety. Do they illuminate or mislead? Introducing their new book, Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot take a look at numbers in the media and show that a little maths goes a long way in unravelling dodgy media claims.

Article

Understanding uncertainty

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.
Article

Plus leaves the classroom

Former Plus editor Helen Joyce explains how Plus made it big as a part of our series to celebrate Plus's tenth anniversary.
Article

Maths goes public

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.
Article

Editorial

  • Happy birthday Plus! — celebrating 10 years of bringing mathematics to life
  • Plus 10 — what were the greatest mathematical advances in the last decade?
Article
Birthday cake with candles and a plus logo photoshopped onto the cake

How time does PASS

Plus magazine is celebrating its 10th birthday. To mark the occasion, the founding editors of Plus look back on the beginnings, see what has changed in maths and public understanding of maths and pick out some of the articles they liked best.

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