When Sports Rules Go Awry: How TheConversation led to a collaborative paper
July 3, 2016
Whilst looking through Conversation articles I came across an article entitled “When scoring an own-goal is the only way to win” by Liam Lenten. By coincidence, I had just read another article about an analysis of sporting rules from the perspecive of Operations Research, written by a good friend of mine – Mike Wright from …
The tricks that could help you win your bet on Euro 2016 – if you can pull them off
June 24, 2016
“If you want to bet with your head, rather than your heart, on the Euro 2016 football championships where should you put your money? You might be surprised to discover that there is sometimes a way that you can bet and be guaranteed to win. If you can find the right set of odds and …
Is the sporting world putting money before fairness?
June 18, 2016
As the 2016 World Snooker Championship gets underway, the 32 entrants will compete for the most sought-after prize in the game. But not all of them will have gone through the same struggle to be there. The top 16 players, defined by the highest money earners over the past two years, get automatic qualification to …
Why the dartboard looks like it does, and how bad players can do better
June 10, 2016
“There are many variants of the game of darts, but by far the most common sees players start with a score of 501 and take turns to reduce this score using three darts at a time until one of the players reaches zero exactly. The layout of a darts board is a circle cut into …
How to beat the casino – legally
June 5, 2016
“If there’s one thing everybody knows about gambling it’s that the house always wins. And while it is true that casinos always make a profit, there are a number of ways to cheat the system – some of which are actually perfectly legal. Half a century ago, mathematician Edward Thorp published a groundbreaking book outlining …
How to unleash the wisdom of crowds
May 8, 2016
“The great Victorian polymath, Sir Francis Galton was at a country fair in 1906, so the story goes, and came across a competition where you had to guess the weight of an ox. Once the competition was over Galton, an explorer, meteorologist, scientist and statistician, took the 787 guesses and calculated the average, which came …
The future of scientific publishing: let’s make sure it’s fair as well as transparent
March 22, 2016
“Scientific publishing has undergone a revolution in recent years – largely due to the internet. And it shows no sign of letting up as a growing number of countries attempt to ensure that research papers are made freely available. Publishers are struggling to adapt their business models to the new challenges. But it is not …
How to crack British intelligence service’s devilish Christmas puzzle
December 18, 2015
“Calling all aspiring spooks. Robert Hannigan, director of Britain’s security and intelligence organisation GCHQ, has included a rather tantalising puzzle with his Christmas card this year. He hopes that it will exercise your grey cells over the holiday period. If you can solve the puzzle, along with the others that it will lead to, you …
How to run a general election sweepstake
May 3, 2015
“Around 50% of people in Britain gamble every month, with about £150M being staked on the Grand National alone. And the Grand National is a perfect opportunity to hold a sweepstake, where everyone pays a fixed amount, draws a random horse, and the people who drew the first three or four horses collect shares of …
Computers are knocking on the door of the company boardroom
April 29, 2015
“While women sitting on company boards remains a much-discussed topic, there is something new waiting to take a seat at the table: artificial intelligence, computers with company voting rights.” … so starts a recently published article in TheConversation that looks at whether a suitably programmed computer can ever be a board member of a company.. …
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