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Numerical Op-Ed

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 Patriot’s pressures incorrect

 

(Thanks to Marc Abrahams for bringing this to my attention)

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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.)