William M. Briggs

Please read this post on the site (click the title) if you have difficulty reading it in the email. Elon Muck infamously pitched a fit last week over his frustration…

Most forget their parameterized models are ad hoc, and so fret about how to put uncertainty on the parameters. Hence the cheerful reception of De Finetti's representation theory. WARNING for…

This is a revamped and updated classic post with new material. It first appeared on 6 February 2020. It's time to revisit this topic, as we'll see below. Polygenic scores…

Here, in two sentences, is the Dilemma of Technology: Fritz Haber earned the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber-Bosch process which synthesized ammonia from…

If you have trouble viewing this in the email, please click the title and read it on my site. This one was too much fun, so I hope you will…

Laplace infamously calculated the probability, given his evidence, the sun would rise in the east tomorrow at (something like) 0.9999995. Many objected, saying it's much higher. Who was right? Laplace!…

One of my Inside-The-Academic-Beast contacts told me recently that the new crop of professors hired at a major well known university were unimaginative, nice and, most damning of all, boring.…

I forgot to remind you of this week's What Are The Chances? video. A truck carrying 216,000 dice spilled onto the highway, and they said the total was exactly 756,000.…