Humans find probability hard, and what we tend to think of as ‘commonsense’ is often defied by the maths.
For proof of this, you need only look at the multi-billion-pound gambling industry. Bookmakers and casinos profit because we find it hard to evaluate odds and probabilities. I am reminded of an intelligent friend who couldn’t understand that buying two different tickets doubled your chances of winning the lottery with one ticket, but that you had to buy 14 million different tickets to be pretty much guaranteed a win.
In this vein, TV-hungry uber-mathematician Marcus du Sautoy explains a cunning probability problem to the wonderful Alan Davies (a man paid to act the dunce on BBC’s QI but who, I suspect, knows almost as much as the Fryster himself…).
The Monty Hall problem is the general name for a puzzle based on a common game-show scenario. I’ll let you watch Marcus and Alan explain all, or you can watch Kevin Spacey and an unnaturally attentive maths class discuss it, from the maths-and-gambling movie ‘21′, below.
Of course, Maths-Whizzers know full well the importance of probability. We start to introduce the concept in Key Stage 2 maths and students are evaluating complex probablity scenarios by year 8.
Today’s BBC tech and web news programme Click featured Maths-Whizz in Kate Russell’s Webscape report.
Ms Russell featured Whizz.com as a way to learn maths, and enjoy doing so, online - which is cool because it’s pretty much exactly how we describe Maths-Whizz. As she pointed out, with the five lessons that free account holders get, kids enjoy a solid forty minutes of maths education - and a taste of our comprehensive online tutor - for nothing.
I’ll leave you to watch the report, in full. If you’re impatient to see Whizz on Auntie, then skip to 21:30.
If you’re a Click viewer stopping by, then sign up for a free account!
The West Indies cricket team coach, John Dyson, misread a scoring system table on which hinged a crucial decision in the nation’s one-day international match against England. As reported in the Daily Mail:
This first one-day international was reaching a thrilling climax before the spectators and the best interests of the game were ill-served when Dyson, West Indies’ Australian coach, mis-read the Duckworth-Lewis scoring charts and accepted an offer for bad light even though West Indies were behind by one run. In effect, they forfeited the first one-day international.
Given that the niceties of cricket scoring are, frankly, beyond me I won’t attempt to investigate the nature of the errant maths. But it’s worth pointing out that, given the importance of maths in sport, it would seem unwise with hindsight to have employed a coach whose own way with numbers was lacking.
Kirtlington professional Andy Taylor will coach in six local schools after receiving an £800 grant from the Golf Foundation.
Taylor’s sessions will teach the sport and look to improve numeracy skills by applying a scoring system relevant to times-tables.
Practitioners and commentators have long needed maths skills to deal with the avalanche of statistics that accompany sports. Whether it’s an understanding of time and lap splits for track athletes, mental maths for darts players or batting averages for baseball players, maths is vital in sport.
We’ll be intrigued to see how Mr Taylor uses times tables to track golf scores, but wish him the best of luck in boosting his charges’ golf and maths at the same time. If golf really is a good walk, spoiled, maybe the maths will make up for it!
