THIS BLOG....
I’m sorry this posting is so late. I promise I’ll try to make sure they’re on time in future.
RISK AND PROBABILITY
The question which I posed - without realising the full consequences! - has given me headaches ever since. If you missed it.......how many people do you need in the same room for there to be a 50/50 chance that two of them share the same birthday? The question arose because of yet another pub-style argument about the answer, which is a much lower figure than you’d think.
The headaches have been caused by the mind-mangling response I got from Loz, virtually none of which I understood. It reminded me of why I only just managed to scrape through my Maths O level all those years ago. I’m not proud of the fact - that’s just the way it is. An interest in buses and canals is much easier on the logic circuits than being a maths fiend - although I can see the fascination. Which reminds me......I once owned a book that was intended as a kind of ‘dummies’ guide to maths and figures. It was called Mathematics for the Millions. Can anyone throw some light on it? Do you know if it’s still available?
There is another - so far unanswered - side to my on-air query. One of the theories I’ve always had great difficulty getting my head round is the fallacy of risk assessment. This seems to suggest that the risk of, say, being killed in an air crash does NOT increase the more often you fly; that the risk is always the same. You only need to fly once in order to assume the same risk as anyone else - including those who fly all the time. I’m assured that this is the case, although it seems entirely illogical to me. Surely, you stand a much better chance of - say - winning the lottery the more tickets you buy. Or don’t you?
THE TRUCKSHUNTER FROG
Thanks to Loz, here is a picture of the psychoactive frog I mentioned in the Newsreel.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?Yesterday I asked what Shield(s) meant in names like South Shields and Carrshield. It comes from and Old English (ie Anglo-Saxon) word schele, ‘hut, shelter’. They were usually temporary shelters built for, for example, fisherfolk (as at South and North Shields) or shepherds (as at Carrshield and many other places). The same word is ‘hidden’ in Axwell, which is ‘huts by the oak trees’ and crops up - in disguise - in Cumbria, often as ‘scale(s)’ or ‘schole(s)’.
Today’s question features one of the region’s oddest names - No Place. How did it get its name?
GEMS
Tonight’s Truckshunter Gem tracks were.....Ring The Living Bell, which I wrongly dated to the late 60s. It was released in 1972 by Melanie Safka (usually known simply as Melanie).....and the theme music for Flight Of The Condor, yet another wonderful BBC wildlife series from the 70s. It was played by Guamary, about whom I know nothing at all, and spawned a craze for panpipe music of all kinds, much of it truly awful. This, though, was exquisite and my thanks go to Pauline in Low Fell for requesting it.
CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or contact me in any one (or more) of these ways....
ian.robinson@bbc.co.uk
text 07786 200954 (while the programme is on-air)
call (between about 0545 and 0630 Monday to Friday) 0191 232 6565
Ian Robinson, The Nightshift, BBC Radio Newcastle, Spital Tongues, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE99 1RN
NOTE
Please bear in mind that the views expressed in this blog are my own and NOT the views of the BBC.
1 comment:
OK, Ian - I've never been able to resist a 'lost cause'. Here goes ...
RISK ASSESSMENT
When you take a flight on an aircraft, there is a chance that there will be an accident, but because of the very large number of flights made, compared to the number of accidents occurring, this value is minute.
The next time you take a flight there is exactly the same probability of having an accident. It doesn't matter what has happened in the past, the flights are independent of each other and what happens on one flight can't affect what happens on the other.
When you compare this with the lottery , it is certainly true that buying more tickets increases the chance of winning because you are simultaneously playing seveal games at once. But if you bought one ticket for each draw then the probability of winning remains the same (one in 13983816 in the case of the jackpot), no matter how many weekly games you play.
Unlike the lottery, you cannot take more than one flight at a time.
I hope this has been of some help, bu going on what you have told me in the past I'll not hold my breath.
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