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probability

Latest Articles

Insights puzzle

COVID-19 Is Raging. How Safe Is Your Backyard Party?

By Pradeep Mutalik
August 6, 2020
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Awash in coronavirus data, misinformation and tremendous uncertainty, we need to put our risk analysis skills to the ultimate test.

Photo of Ronald Rivest sitting in his office
Q&A

Cryptography Pioneer Seeks Secure Elections the Low-Tech Way

By Susan D'Agostino
March 12, 2020
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Ronald Rivest helped come up with the RSA algorithm, which safeguards online commerce. Now he’s hoping to make democratic elections more trustworthy.

Multimedia

The Map of Mathematics

By Kevin Hartnett
February 13, 2020
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Explore our surprisingly simple, absurdly ambitious and necessarily incomplete guide to the boundless mathematical universe.

A rogue wave and a sailboat.
fluid dynamics

The Grand Unified Theory of Rogue Waves

By Charlie Wood
February 5, 2020
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Rogue waves — enigmatic giants of the sea — were thought to be caused by two different mechanisms. But a new idea that borrows from the hinterlands of probability theory has the potential to predict them all.

An illustration of a pink hand reaching for quantum dice.
Quantized Columns

Where Quantum Probability Comes From

By Sean Carroll
September 9, 2019
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There are many different ways to think about probability. Quantum mechanics embodies them all.

Art for "In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime"
number theory

In the Universe of Equations, Virtually All Are Prime

By Kevin Hartnett
December 10, 2018
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Equations, like numbers, cannot always be split into simpler elements.

Illustration for "How the DNA Computer Program Makes You and Me"
Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘The DNA Computer Program’

By Pradeep Mutalik
April 27, 2018
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Computer code serves as a useful analogy for what our genes do, but the complexity and messiness of life go well beyond simple analogies and mathematical models.

Illustration for "How the DNA Computer Program Makes You and Me"
Insights puzzle

How the DNA Computer Program Makes You and Me

By Pradeep Mutalik
April 5, 2018
Comment
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Can a set of simple instructions produce complex, three-dimensional living structures?

520px illustration of a man falling and missing a hay stack to land on.
Insights puzzle

Solution: ‘When Probability Meets Real Life’

By Pradeep Mutalik
March 2, 2018
Comment
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When our brains don’t have a good intuition for reasoning with numbers, explicit probabilistic thinking can lead to improved decision-making.


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