De Econometrist
De Econometrist neemt een statistische kijk op de wereld.
The Butterfly Effect
In the movie ‘The Butterfly Effect’ a college student, Evan Treborn, finds a way to ‘travel back in time’. He does this by inhabiting his former self, that is, his adult mind inhabits his younger body. In this way, he can change the present by changing his past behaviours. Unfortunately, this has unintended consequences for him and his friends. It is not a coincidence that this movie is called ‘The Butterfly Effect’. The movie is named after the mathematical idea that is also called the Butterfly Effect, which is based on the phenomenon that the […]
Bicycle capital Groningen: the downside
Nowhere else in the world, is there such a high percentage of people using the bicycle for transport as in Groningen. The great number of students in the city and the stimulating policy of the township result in a 60 percent share of cyclists in normal day traffic. Hence you could say Groningen is the bicycle capital of the world. That is obviously something to be proud of, as it contributes to a better world. However, the extreme amount of cyclists in Groningen also causes multiple problems for the city. What is the downside of […]
The Riemann Hypothesis: how to earn a million with math?
The Riemann Hypothesis, a mathematical hypothesis conjectured by famous mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is one of the seven most famous mathematical problems of the last millennium. A price of one million dollars is awarded to the person who provides a solution to one of these problems. The Riemann Hypothesis is used in a multitude of other mathematical proofs, mostly in prime number theory. Therefore, it is crucial that the hypothesis is proven. Definition of the Riemann Hypothesis To start: The Riemann hypothesis states that all nontrivial zeros of the continuous analytic extension of the Riemann Zeta […]
Guess the number of M&M’s in the jar and win …
We have all seen it at least once in our life: ‘Guess the number of M&M’s in the jar and win …’. Unfortunately, most of us have never been able to give an accurate guess. However, there exists a concept that can consistently yield accurate guesses. The wisdom of crowds is the concept that a large group of people has a higher collective intelligence than individual experts. This idea is applicable to a vast variety of instances including problem-solving, decision-making, forecasting, and policymaking. For example, some companies measure market sentiment via Twitter feeds. Data from […]
How to Lie with Smoking Statistics
In 1953 publiceerde Ernest Wynder een onderzoek over longkanker, waarbij hij het teer uit sigaretten met een borstel op 81 muizen smeerde. Het resultaat van dit onderzoek was dat 44 procent van de ingesmeerde muizen kanker had gekregen en slechts 10 procent van de totale groep was na twintig maanden nog in leven. Bij de niet-ingesmeerde muizen was er bij geen van hen kanker gevonden en 53 procent was nog in leven na twintig maanden. Vanzelfsprekend liet dit onderzoek vele mensen schrikken. Het gevolg hiervan was dat de aandelen van de tabaksindustrie flink in waarde […]
5 minuten
Save the planet, paint a cow!
We live in a time where we pay a lot of attention to the environment. You should always be looking for improvements and those can be found in the most extraordinary fields. You might wonder how painting a cow can save the planet, and that is a perfectly good question to ask yourself. Fortunately, that will be explained in this article. First of all, painting a cow can be read in multiple ways. In this case we are talking about applying paint on the skin of a cow. Experimental studies suggest that cows painted […]
3 minuten
Predicting outcomes of tennis matches
In the article posted 4 weeks ago about the dark side of the tennis world I talked about how vulnerable the tennis sport is to match fixing. Bets can even be placed on every single point. However, is there a way to predict the outcome of matches and maybe even points? There are multiple articles that have tried to solve this problem. Many of these articles mention Markov models as I explained earlier. Now I will be digging deeper into this subject and try to predict a match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Markov […]
12 minuten
Perfectly out of tune
Almost everybody enjoys some nice piano music, at least occasionally. Although some more keen of the instrument than others, many would claim being able to diagnose an out-of-tune piano. Fact is, however, that a piano is never in perfect tune. I’ll tell you why. The piano is an instrument that, like the guitar, uses the vibration of its strings to produce sound. The tone that a string produces is determined by multiple factors, such as its length, tension and composition. On the piano string, waves reflect from both ends. The superposition of reflecting waves […]
3 minuten
Thuisbezorgd.nl: eten of gegeten worden
Het is zaterdagavond, je bent net thuis, moet nog eten en je hebt totaal geen zin om te koken. Oplossing? Thuisbezorgd.nl. Wij studenten weten maar al te goed hoe handig het kan zijn om van de diensten van Thuisbezorgd of welke andere bezorgdienst dan ook gebruik te maken. In het dagelijks straatbeeld zijn de scooters met de Thuisbezorgd reclame dan ook bijna niet meer weg te denken. Het zal je daarom ook niet verbazen dat Thuisbezorgd in 2018 een omzet heeft gedraaid van welgeteld 240 miljoen euro. Dat terwijl in 2017 deze omzet ‘slechts’ 120 […]
5 minuten
AlphaZero: the new king of chess
It may seem like a guy with a really curious last name gave his child an even weirder first name, but AlphaZero is actually the name of the computer program developed by DeepMind (owned by Google). This year, this program managed to shock the chess world by beating Stockfish 10, which used to be the strongest chess engine in the world. To make this performance even more impressive, it took AlphaZero only four hours to become this good at chess. Checkmate humans, your time is over. AlphaZero vs. Stockfish This is not the first impressive […]
3 minuten
#MoveTheDate of Earth Overshoot Day
Earth Overshoot Day is the calculated date on which humanity’s resources consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. According to the Global Footprint Network, in 2019 the Earth Overshoot Day was on 29 July, which is earlier than ever. This date has moved up the calendar by two months over the past 20 years and not a single of the EU countries is performing at a sustainable level yet. World’s population is using natural resources 1.75 times faster than our planet’s ecosystem can regenerate. This is possible because we […]
6 minuten
The Muffin Problem
Imagine, you and two friends visit a bakery and buy six delicious cupcakes. However, while leaving the bakery, your friend who’s holding the box with delicacies trips and one of the cupcakes falls to the ground. All three puzzled, you look at each other, how are you going to divide five cupcakes over three people? The smaller the pieces, the bigger the chance the piece will crumble. Hence you and your friends are challenged to divide the five cupcakes over three people such that everyone receives an equal cut and the smallest piece is as […]
4 minuten
De Redactie
De redactie van De Econometrist bestaat momenteel uit 12 leden die samen een hechte groep vormen. Regelmatig onderneemt de groep leuke activiteiten. Als je alle redacteurs wilt zien kijk dan op de redactie pagina.
