Skeptics on the Fringe:Colin Beveridge-A Snowballs Chance: Million-To-One Shots

Speaker

Colin Beveridge is the author of several Maths For Dummies books, and has been fascinated by probability since losing his first game of Yahtzee. A former rocket scientist, he came up with an equation used in keeping the world safe from being destroyed by solar flares (so far so good) before setting up shop as a maths tutor and author.

He now lives in Dorset with an espresso pot and nothing to prove.

For more about Colin, check his website: http://www.flyingcoloursmaths.co.uk

And follow him on Twitter: @icecolbeveridge (http://twitter.com/icecolbeveridge)

Talk

Human beings are, on the whole, rubbish at probability. Especially really small probabilities – are you more likely to die from a lightning strike or from falling masonry? Is it worth buying insurance against meteorites? What are the odds of Scotland winning the 2014 World Cup?

In this talk, Colin puts really small probability events into context, using monkeys with typewriters, the absurdly improbable life of Girolamo Cardano, and Pratchett’s Law.

You’ll go away equipped with the tools to think about very unlikley things. Probably.

http://www.edinburghskeptics.co.uk/events-2/