160,000 Four-Leaf Clovers?
This doesn’t really seem possible, but Edward Martin has found 160,000 four-leaf clovers. I’ve been looking my whole life and never found one. Trying to find one was my main reason for playing Pee Wee...
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Putt Probabilities
Like many others, I was incredibly jazzed by Tiger’s victory on Monday. But I was frustrated that the commentators routinely failed to mention the putting distance to the hole. It would be nice to...
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Rebound Rates
The Celtics’ demolition of the Lakers reminds me that the sport announcers would do well to put more emphasis on “rebound rates.” Like putt probabilities, the rebound rate basically tells you the...
View ArticleThe Odds of Surviving a Plane Crash
The Book of Odds takes a look at a question that flashes through the minds of many people the moment they board an airplane: what are your odds of surviving a plane crash? They found that “[t]he...
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A Freakonomics Contest: Odds of Same City Teams in NCAA Sweet 16
Photo: iStockphoto Alright Freakonomics readers, basketball fans in particular, it’s contest time! This year’s NCAA Tournament, now down to the Round of 16, aka the Sweet 16, includes a statistical...
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Answer to Same-City NCAA Sweet 16 Questions
Photo: iStockphoto Last week, we posed two questions regarding the NCAA basketball tournament: what are the odds that two teams from the same city would make the Sweet 16? And when was the last time...
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Probabalistic Auctions: Why Don’t Universities Raffle off Chair Endowments?
A recent post of mine was addressed to the super-rich who are considering endowing a chair in order to garner public recognition. But what about the merely rich who wish to have their names recognized...
View ArticleClassrooms With 500,000 Students
I am fascinated by the Stanford online courses in machine learning and artificial intelligence. My first inkling of them came when quite a few of my students started taking the artificial-intelligence...
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What Are the Odds of Twins Born in Different Years?
(Photo: Larry Jacobsen) The following is a guest post by Louise Firth Campbell and Amram Shapiro, the authors (with Rosalind Wright) of The Book of Odds: From Lightning Strikes to Love at First Sight,...
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