Math & Statistics

Every statistic is the result of someone’s work, and we’d do well to ask ourselves why it was created. That way, says the statistician, we have a better chance of working out when dangers are being overstated and data misused

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) has become an iconic figure for women in science and is often credited with the invention of modern computing. But, as Ursula Martin—mathematician, computer scientist and Lovelace biographer—explains, all of that is a bit overblown. The Lovelace myth obscures the truth about a woman who was certainly a very brilliant mathematician, but who was also often frustrated in her scientific ambitions, in poor health and unhappy.

The Oxford professor tells us how he finds beauty in maths, and why his ultimate aim is to become a master of the glass bead game.

From mathematical card tricks to an arrangement of interlocking pentagons previously thought impossible, the maths writer explains why solutions to maths problems can be as beautiful as paintings or sculpture

Award-winning statistician and political scientist Andrew Gelman says that uncertainty is an important part of life, and recognition of that uncertainty is itself an important step. He picks the best books on statistics.

Former UNESCO Professor of Maths and Economics at Columbia University selects five intriguing books on catastophic risks, making statistical decisions and reasoned gambling