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SUMMARY:Improbable things always happen
DESCRIPTION:Register for this event via the Friends of Imperial College web
 site.\nAbout the talk\nExtraordinarily rare events are anything but. In fa
 ct\, they’re commonplace. Not only that\, we should all expect to experi
 ence a miracle roughly once every month. “An unusual day is when nothing
  unusual happens.” But why?\nOn 3 July 2000\, the Washington newspaper T
 he Columbian printed the Pick 4 Oregon Lottery results: 6\, 8\, 5\, 5. Not
 hing surprising in that\, except for the fact that the newspaper was print
 ed before the lottery numbers were drawn.\nWhen the police went to investi
 gate they were told that the newspaper’s computer had crashed just hours
  before it was due to be printed\, so they’d had to recreate the paper i
 n a rush. By accident they’d pasted in the winning numbers from the Virg
 inia lottery\, instead of from the preceding day’s Oregon lottery. And t
 he improbability principle had come into play: the Virginia lottery’s fo
 ur numbers just happened to be the ones which were due to come up in the O
 regon lottery.\nThe King James Bible was published in the year that Shakes
 peare turned 46. Psalm 46 of this bible is God is Our Refuge and Strength.
  The 46th word of this psalm is shake. The 46th word from the end is spear
 . A bizarre coincidence or something more? \nWhy is it that incredibly un
 likely phenomena actually happen quite regularly and why should we\, in fa
 ct\, expect such things to happen? \nProfessor David Hand answers this qu
 estion by weaving together various strands of probability into a unified e
 xplanation\, which he calls the improbability principle. \nThis lecture w
 ill appeal not only to those who love stories about startling coincidences
  and extraordinarily rare events\, but also to those who are interested in
  how a single bold idea links areas as diverse as gambling\, the weather\,
  airline disasters and creative writing as well as the origin of life and 
 even the universe. \nThe Improbability Principle will change your perspec
 tive on how the world works – and tell you what the Bible code and Shake
 speare have in common\, how to win the lottery\, why Apple’s song shuffl
 ing was made less random to seem more random. Oh and why lightning does in
  fact strike twice…\nBut Hand is no believer in superstitions\, propheci
 es\, or the paranormal. His definition of “miracle” is thoroughly rati
 onal. No mystical or supernatural explanation is necessary to understand w
 hy someone is lucky enough to win the lottery twice\, or is destined to be
  hit by lightning three times and still survive. All we need\, Hand argues
 \, is a firm grounding in a powerful set of laws: the laws of inevitabilit
 y\, of truly large numbers\, of selection\, of the probability lever\, and
  of near enough.\nBiography\nProfessor David Hand is Senior Research Inves
 tigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College\, London
 \, where he formerly held the Chair in Statistics. He is also Chief Scient
 ific Advisor to Winton Capital Management\, a Fellow of the British Academ
 y\, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. He has served (t
 wice) as President of the Royal Statistical Society.\nHe was appointed a n
 on-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority on 1 April 2013 for a
  period of three years\, and is Chair of the Board of the UK Administrativ
 e Data Research Network.He has published more than 300 scientific papers a
 nd 26 books\, including Principles of Data Mining\, Information Generation
 \, and Measurement Theory and Practice. His book\, The Improbability Princ
 iple\, was published in February 2014. In 2013 he was made OBE for service
 s to research and innovation.\nOptionally followed by supper (this can be 
 booked on the event booking form).\nAfter the lecture a Friends’ Table h
 as been reserved at a local restaurant to entertain the speaker and for an
 y of the audience who would like to join us to continue the evening’s di
 scussion. A two-course fixed price supper is served including wine\, coffe
 e and service charge. 
URL:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/103545/improbable-things-always-happe
 n/
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20151117T190000
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LOCATION:United Kingdom
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