Probability

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the strange mathematics of probability where heads or tails is a simple question with a far from simple answer. Gambling may be as old as the hills but probability as a mathematical discipline is a relative youngster. Probability is the field of maths relating to random events and, although commonplace now, the idea that you can pluck a piece of maths from the tumbling of dice, the shuffling of cards or the odds in the local lottery is a relatively recent and powerful one. It may start with the toss of a coin but probability reaches into every area of the modern world, from the analysis of society to the decay of an atom.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Marcus du Sautoy 15 episodes
  Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford
• Colva Roney-Dougal 11 episodes
  Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews
• Ian Stewart 15 episodes
  Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick

Related episodes

• Random and Pseudorandom
  
  13 Jan, 2011 510 Mathematics
• Mathematics’ Unintended Consequences
  
  11 Feb, 2010 510 Mathematics
• Mathematics
  
  6 May, 1999 510 Mathematics
• Game Theory
  
  10 May, 2012 510 Mathematics
• Maths and Storytelling
  
  30 Sep, 1999 510 Mathematics
• Mathematics and Platonism
  
  11 Jan, 2001 510 Mathematics
• Pierre-Simon Laplace
  
  8 Apr, 2021 510 Mathematics
• Renaissance Maths
  
  2 Jun, 2005 510 Mathematics
• The Poincaré Conjecture
  
  2 Nov, 2006 510 Mathematics
• Godel’s Incompleteness Theorems
  
  9 Oct, 2008 510 Mathematics

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: b00bqf61

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bqf61

Auto-category: 510 (Mathematics)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. Heads or tails?