Posts tagged with probability
Girolamo Cardano
‘Girolamo’ is not a very popular name for anyone, but Girolamo Cardano was a famous mathematician who lived from 1501-1576. He was a doctor and the author of 131 books. He was also a compulsive gambler. It was this gambling habit that led him to the first mathematical analysis of probability. He realised he could win […]
White Island volcano erupts: reports of injuries in NZ
News Flash: “An eruption is currently happening at White Island. Unconfirmed reports said up to 19 people were on or near the island at the time of the eruption and a rescue helicopter is on the way. Some of the people on the island have critical injuries.” Source: NZ Herald. So, this begs the mathematical question – […]
Probability – flip a coin for $1b
Here is another chance to look at probability, and one that you might be allowed to play in class! Flip a coin continuously until a tail appears for the first time. If this doesn’t happen until the 20th (or later) flip, you win $1 billion. If the first tail appears before the 20th flip, you […]
Guilty or innocent? Math in the Courtroom Part II
In 2003, a Dutch nurse named Lucia de Berk was accused of murdering several patients. She was sent to prison for six years in before her conviction was overturned in 2010. The reason for the overturning? The prosecutor and the judges behind the conviction could not do math correctly. The grade 11 class delved deep […]
Probability to the Defense
So, an appeal was made to the Supreme Court, when it was overturned on the basis of probability arguments. The defense attorney argued that 1/12,000,000 was not the relevant probability (see previous post). In a city the size of Los Angeles, with maybe 2,000,000 couples, the probability was not that small, he argued, that there […]
Probabilities and Courtroom Drama
In 1964 a Los Angeles blond woman with a ponytail snatched a purse from another woman. The thief was spotted entering a yellow car driven by a black man with a beard and a mustache. The police eventually found a blond woman with a ponytail who regularly associated with a bearded and mustachioed black man […]
DNA Revisited – Mathematical Proof of Divinity?
A single cell and the DNA that causes it to function is millions of times more intricate than anything man has created. So, is it mathematically possible for us to not be created by a higher power? For illustration purposes, let’s take a 200 page book. Could the cover, the paper, the ink and the […]
Math Wizz used Probability to Beat Lotto
Romanian economist Stefan Mandel was struggling to make ends meet. So he came up with an unlikely solution — winning the lottery. But while most people who dream of scooping the jackpot rely on dumb luck, Mandel had other ideas. Mandel spent his spare time poring over probability papers penned by mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci — […]
The Math of Christmas
In the Bible there are some 300 prophecies concerning the arrival and life of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Here are 8 of those 300 prophecies and the mathematical probability that they happened: (1) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-6) (2) The Messiah will be a descendant of Jacob. […]