Why you should ignore car insurance savings claims
When one company advertises it can save you money, it sounds like a deal. But when two companies claim they can BOTH save you money, you have to think something is fishy.
Such is the case with auto insurance. Currently both the companies State Farm and Allstate have advertising claims that ...
Monday puzzle: coin flipping streaks
There are tons of probability puzzles related to coin flipping.
This one is about the topic of hitting a lucky streak in flipping the same outcome repeatedly:
(the puzzle is a problem from one of my college math books, Apostol Calculus Volume II)
College football rankings statistical paradox
In America, college football teams do not participate in a playoff. The teams are instead ranked according to a mathematical formula called the BCS ranking system.
Without getting into too many details, the BCS ranking broadly works like this. Teams are ranked independently by 3 different voting systems: the Harris Poll, ...
Optimal shaving frequency
This week has already featured two puzzles about optimizing (Christmas trinket puzzle, auction theory puzzle), so I thought I'd keep the trend going today.
Today's post is actually inspired by a problem I considered when I shave my head. Here is the story and my results.
No, retiring early won’t kill you: understanding studies of retirement and longevity
I understand that retiring is never an easy decision. People wonder about how they will spend their time, and whether they will be happy outside of a job.
I get that. But what I don't like is the unusual fear-mongering about change. Reputable magazines publish some things that scare people into ...
Stop fooling yourself: a better blind taste test that can help you save money
image by tiarescott
Do you have strong preferences for food and drink? One of my friends insists on drinking high end vodka. Another prefers the taste of brand name cereal. And someone else drinks organic milk primarily for its taste rather than for health reasons.
These specialty products can run up to ...
How good is your bowling score?
I usually bowl a score around 130, but the other day I hit six strikes and wound up with 215.
I took a moment to revel in the high score, but then I got thinking more critically. I was curious about how good the score was in a statistical sense.
I was ...
The St. Petersburg Paradox: a flimsy critique of expectation theory by people who don’t know math or economics
As someone who uses math and economics for a living, I come across many opposing arguments. There are always people who wish to prove to me economics is fundamentally flawed.
My first encounter of this type came after my freshman year of study at Stanford. I was sharing some economics ideas ...
Can you tell the difference between real and ‘fake’ stock prices? New study says that most people can
There's a neat online video game that tests whether you can identify real stock data from randomized, generated data. The game is called ARORA, an abbreviation for "a random or real array" of prices.
(found via Technology Review)
The purpose of the game
Many economists argue that markets are efficient, meaning prices reflect ...
The necktie paradox
In the spirit of the season, I thought it would be fun to discuss a Christmas related paradox.
The necktie paradox begins as follows (source). Two men are given neckties by their wives as Christmas presents. Over drinks they start arguing about who has the cheaper necktie.
They decide to make a ...
16 fun applications of the pigeonhole principle
[This article is included in the 45th Carnival of Math]
Mathematical logic can produce some great trivia. Did you know that at every instant, there is a spot in the world where no wind is blowing? It is true, and the proof comes as an application of a fixed point theorem ...
