Month: August 2013

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - The magic of maths

Tim Harford speaks to Persi Diaconis, top professor of maths and statistics and legendary magician. The Stanford University professor and co-author of the book "Magical Mathematics" has an enthralling story to tell of how he discovered magic as a boy, and then, as a consequence, a love of maths. And to illustrate how closely maths and magic are linked, Crossing Continents editor and the BBC's in-house magician, Hugh Levinson, performs a mathemagical card trick - see the performance below. This programme was broadcast on the BBC World Service. The interview was recorded in 2011.

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - Where could we fit the entire world?s population?

If all the world?s population crowded together, where could we all fit? London? Texas? More or Less figures it out, and separates fact from fiction. And, as the soccer season returns, is it possible to measure the effectiveness of a team?s manager? We hear from David Sally, author of The Numbers Game. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.