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Archive for May, 2015

The Patriots, the Nobel Laureate, and the power of uncertainty

By ⋅ May 14, 2015 ⋅ Post a comment

Chemistry Nobel Laureate Roderick MacKinnon has done a wonderful (by which I mean numerically sound) analysis of the analysis of the Patriots’ footballs.  This is yet another example of the cost of not understanding uncertainty:  was it $2 million?  If Brady would like me to teach him, I’ll take a mere half of that. Analysis of [...]

It’s just multiplication, have no fear

By ⋅ May 12, 2015 ⋅ Post a comment

(A true story, with some added sarcasm, to illustrate that using equations is safer in the long run than trying to avoid using equations)   My lab has a new centrifuge that I recently needed to use for the first time.  Like most centrifuges, you can set the rotations per minute (RPM) and the number [...]

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Birth of the Blog

This blog, like the book Lab Math from which it springs (incompletely formed), will be about numbers. I will endeavor to:

1. showcase the basic and the practical, not the challenging or even the advanced;

2.. provide straightforward guidance for the unenthusiastic (“just do it exactly this way”);

3.. provide refreshers for those needing refreshment (whether they know it or not.)