2023

08/2023 – Here’s why the new ‘girl math’ trend just doesn’t add up
The new splurge now, justify the cost later craze has taken social media by storm. Good, harmless fun? Not by my calculations.

08/2023 – How Do Psychic Predictions Work? I Visited One To Find Out
Playing the psychic game – how to spot the techniques being used on you.

08/2023 – How coin tosses can lead to better decisions
Our modern lives can often leave us overwhelmed with choice – so might it make sense to let an external agent help us to make difficult decisions?

07/2023 – Here’s what we can do to prepare for the next pandemic
As the Covid inquiry heats up, what can the UK do to ready itself for future disasters?

07/2023 – What your name really means and how it can affect your life
Is it a coincidence that a man with the surname Bolt is the fastest man alive? Is there a link between what we call ourselves and what we do?

07/2023 – Why you’ve probably been using sunscreen all wrong your whole life
What exactly does SPF mean, and how does it help you beat the heat? What factor you should really be using, why – and how often should you reapply?

06/2023 – How do we know health screening programmes work?
How lead time bias can lead us to believe that screening programmes are more effective than they actually are.

05/2023 – The hidden dangers of two-party politics
In a two-horse race, declines in popularity for one candidate are equivalent to gains in popularity for the other.

04/2023 – Why are we so proud of being ‘bad at maths’?
You don’t hear people boasting of not being able to read in the same way that people will proudly assert how poor they are at mathematics.

03/2023 – Suella Braverman’s numbers on small boats are completely wrong
The home secretary suggested there were ‘likely billions more’ people, eager to come to the UK. The reality is quite different

03/2023 – Boris Johnson’s massive maths mistake over Covid deaths is an embarrassment
At a time when other world leaders were going on television and explaining important scientific concepts to the masses, we endured a prime minister who was making basic mathematical errors

2022

01/2022 – Why mathematicians sometimes get Covid projections wrong
Modelling may not be a crystal ball, but it remains the best tool we have to predict the future