A statistical look at the world.
Does True Randomness Exist?
Have you ever wondered what randomness is? According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, randomness is the fact of being done, chosen, etc. without somebody deciding in advance what is going to happen, or without any regular pattern. Hence, it is a nondeterministic event (an event that can not be directly determined by another event). In [...]
ORTEC: We are a family of smart explorative minds
We are everywhere around you, probably without you even realizing it. Among other things, we help our logistics customers to efficiently plan their routes and therefore reduce their CO₂ footprint; we help academic hospitals to efficiently plan their workforce and their schedule; we help our services customers to plan their visits to their [...]
Möbius Strip: The Strangest Shape
A Möbius Strip is a one-sided surface that can be constructed by taking a rectangular strip of paper, twisting it once and joining the ends of the strip. The result is a wonky shaped ring. This ring, discovered by Johann Benedict Listing and August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858, has a number of interesting properties. Most notably, a Möbius Strip [...]
The Story of Moneyball: A Baseball Movie About Statistics
A movie about statistics, return on investments, and market inefficiencies does not sound like a hit movie to most. However, a movie with a box office of over a hundred million dollars, multiple Oscar nominations and numerous awards won does. This is Moneyball, a movie that tells the story of how the Oakland Athletics, led by general manager [...]
The Mathematical Mysteries Behind the Great Pyramid
Being the oldest site among the original Seven Wonders, it is not surprising that the Great Pyramid of Giza attracts more than 14 million tourists a year. Seeing these huge structures in the vast, sandy desert, many of these 14 million tourists do not realize the mathematical precision used to build the pyramids. The pyramids reveal the [...]
The Key Role of Statistics in WW2
Many of the most important statistical theorems have been discovered around the 40s, which is the same time in which World War 2 occurred (1939/1945). This is of course not a coincidence, one of the paradoxes of war is that if on the one hand it takes and impacts millions and millions of lives, on the other hand it leads to new scientific and [...]
Regression Analysis: A Beginner’s Guide
Econometrics, the intersection of economics and statistics, employs sophisticated methods to analyse and quantify relationships within economic systems. One of its fundamental tools is regression analysis, a statistical technique that allows economists tot model and understand the connections between variables. In this article we will unravel some complexities of regression analysis focusing on basis principles […]
Are You Tying Your Shoelaces Wrong?
We tie our shoelaces to ensure that our shoes stay on tight, and we do these by tying a knot. There are different ways to tie your shoelaces, you may have learnt the “around the tree” technique, but somehow, they still always come undone, why? This all has to do with knot theory. If you […]
The Dutch Childcare Benefits Scandal – How Big Data and AI Can Have Disastrous Consequences
Last week, the elections for the Dutch parliament took place. This election came earlier than usual since the cabinet Rutte IV had fallen due to failed negotiations about policy toward asylum seekers. The same political parties formed the previous coalition, Rutte III. This cabinet had also fallen, although this was only two months before the […]
The 100 Prisoner Problem
Imagine if tomorrow you were abducted, and before you knew it, you were trapped in a room with 99 other people who seemed to know nothing more about what was happening than you. You notice that everyone is wearing an orange jumpsuit, which is uniquely numbered. You also notice a door, and you can not […]