Showing results for "everything" in Mathematics

New insights from the science of science Facts change all the time. Smoking has gone from doctor recommended to deadly. We used to think the Earth was the center of the universe and that Pluto was a planet. For decades, we were convinced that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur. In short, what we know about the world is constantly changing. But it turns out there’s an order to the state of knowledge, an explanation for how we know what we know.

Thomas Bayes was an eighteenth-century Presbyterian minister and amateur mathematician whose obscure life belied the profound impact of his work. Like most research into probability at the time, his theorem - independently discovered a few years later by Pierre-Simon Laplace, the great French mathematician - was mainly seen as relevant to games of chance, like dice and cards. But its implications soon became clear, affecting fields as diverse as medicine, law and artificial intelligence.

How should a democracy choose its representatives? How does disease spread? How do computers teach themselves chess and why is chess easier for them than analysing a sentence? All of these are questions about geometry. Jordan Ellenberg reveals the mathematics behind some of the most important scientific, political and philosophical conundrums we face. The word 'geometry', from the Greek, means 'measuring the world'. If anything, geometry doesn't just measure the world - it explains it. Shape shows us how.

In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes's formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get interesting: Bayes's theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive?

Choices can be overwhelming. But you don’t need to give up on the things that you want just because you have a history of making the worst decisions. With the help of game theory, you will learn to adapt a more rational, effective, and analytical way to formulate your decisions and land the outcome that you’ve always wanted. More often than not, decisions based on merely feelings can lead to chaos and dissatisfaction. It will always be better to use your head in making a choice, especially in major deals such as in your business and personal affairs.