Hello. I hope you enjoy these writings. Any comments are most welcome. See also
my book Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of
Probabilities, and
the media articles which mention me below.
Happy reading!
Articles for the General Public:
(These articles can all be read and understood regardless of your
mathematics background.)
- FOOTBALL (SOCCER) GROUP DRAW METHODS AND PROBABILITIES.
Toronto Star opinion section, p. A17, March 31, 2022.
[Or in
pdf
or image
or plain-text.
See also the related project description and
computer simulations
and research paper
and UofT News interview/A&S
and CBC.ca article
and UEFA.]
- OLYMPIC SPRINT FALSE START FAILED TO GET OFF THE BLOCKS.
Toronto Star, August 10, 2021, page A15.
[pdf,
image,
original,
starter web page,
related calculations,
Athletics Illustrated article]
- ARTICLE
ABOUT ELECTION POLL ERRORS
(text
/ top
/ bottom
/ page).
Published in the Globe and Mail on November 13/14, 2020, page O9.
[See also my related article
POLLS, DAMNED POLLS, AND
STATISTICS (pdf), IMS Bulletin, November 2020.]
- A NOTE ABOUT PIEMS (i.e., poems which
secretly encode the digits of pi). January 2018.
- PI INSTANT: March 14, 2015,
at 9:26:53.58979... a.m. October 2014.
Published
in the February 2015 issue of Math
Horizons.
(See a related radio interview.)
- STATISTICS AND THE ONTARIO LOTTERY
RETAILER SCANDAL,
based on my earlier investigations
for the Fifth Estate.
Published
in CHANCE Magazine
27(1), 2014.
(Later republished
in Best Writing on Mathematics 2015,
and in Chinese.)
- PROBABILITY, JUSTICE, AND THE
RISK OF WRONGFUL CONVICTION (pdf). September 2014.
Published in
The Mathematical
Enthusiast 12, June 2015.
- THE MATHEMATICS OF YOUR NEXT FAMILY
REUNION (pdf), October 2011.
Who is your "first cousin twice removed", and how closely are
they related to you?
Published
in Plus Magazine (with
Appendix),
December 2011.
- A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO THE MONTY HALL
PROBLEM, August 2006. By popular demand!
[See also my slightly more technical article
MONTY HALL, MONTY FALL, MONTY CRAWL (pdf).]
- ONTARIO'S CENTER-LEFT STATISTICAL
CONUNDRUM and some RELATED CALCULATIONS
about vote-splitting in Ontario's October 2018 election.
- HOW PROBABILITY THEORY NEARLY DESTROYED
CANADA. Lessons from the Meech Lake Accord
political debates about Canadians' attitudes towards randomness.
Published in
Outreach Connection, October 2005.
- My ARTICLE
ABOUT THE TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL LOTTERY SYSTEM
[or in text].
Published in the National
Post, September 10, 2005.
- THE
MAGICAL MATHEMATICS OF MUSIC. Published in Plus Magazine, May 2005.
(See local copy and
also a related radio interview.)
- I wrote a number of PROBABILITY
QUIZZES, some of which were published in
Saturday Night Magazine before they folded.
- See also my books
Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities
and Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything,
my biography,
and my other books and
research papers.
Articles for People Interested in Math or Stats:
- PROBABILITIES OF STREAKS
IN ONLINE CHESS (pdf), Aug/Sept 2024.
(See
orig/add,
UofT News/video,
Chess.com article/interview,
Kvideo,
Nvideo.)
- THE ANNALS QUADFECTA 23 (pdf)
(with Margaret Fulford), April 2021.
Published
on page 18 of the
June/July
2021 issue 50(4) of the
IMS Bulletin.
- POLLS, DAMNED POLLS, AND
STATISTICS (pdf). November 2020.
Published in the
IMS Bulletin 50(1),
January/February 2021, p. 4
(see web
version).
- BRIDGE PROBABILITIES FOR A 9-CARD SUIT.
May 2020.
- A PROPOSAL FOR EVALUATING STUDENT
MEDICAL EXCUSES, joint with Louella Lobo, March 2020.
- COMPUTING MARGINS OF ERROR IN OPINION POLLS.
August 2018.
- STATISTICS USING JUST ONE
FORMULA (pdf). March 2017.
(Published in Teaching
Statistics 40(1), 7-11, 2017.)
- MATHEMATICS TO SCALE (pdf).
June 2016. An article about "scaling" of quantities in different
dimensions, inspired by a unit in STA201.
Published in
Pi In
The Sky, Issue 20, 2017.
- THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT:
DIVIDE BY n WHEN ESTIMATING VARIANCE (pdf). August 2015. Published
in the
IMS Bulletin,
December 2015. (See also a related calculation.)
- LESSONS FROM A TWISTED CAREER
PATH (pdf). Reflections upon my academic career path that ultimately
led to receiving the COPSS Presidents' Award. (Book chapter for a
COPSS
volume; February 2013;
later translated into Chinese.)
- A STATISTICAL
RANKING OF NCAA BASKETBALL TEAMS [or in
pdf and text]. Predictions for the
2013 "March Madness" NCAA basketball tournament, prepared for
TSN.
(See also some related
probabilities.)
- My REVIEW OF A BOOK ABOUT COXETER
(quoted here)
was published in the
Globe and Mail,
October 14, 2006.
- FOREIGN POLICY BY THE NUMBERS, a
mathematician's perspective on global events, July 2005.
- MONTY HALL, MONTY FALL, MONTY CRAWL (pdf),
June 2005.
Uses the Proportionality Principle to truly explain the infamous Monty Hall
problem.
Published in Math
Horizons, September 2008.
- My PAGE ABOUT W.K. HASTINGS, the Canadian
co-developer of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, March 2004.
- MARGINS OF ERROR IN OPINION POLLS,
2003. How to compute that a poll is "accurate to within 3.1 percentage
points, 19 times out of 20".
(See also an UPDATED VERSION, August 2018.)
-
DOUGLAS HOFSTADTER AND ME (September 2002).
A recollection of the time I met my childhood idol Douglas Hofstadter,
and accidentally insulted him.
Other Non-Fiction:
Fiction, Etc:
Over the years, I have written various short stories and poems.
A few of them are listed here. They're far from perfect, however
you might possibly find them interesting. (If you do, then please let me know.)
Some Media Articles by Others which Mention Me:
- An ARTICLE ABOUT
BASEBALL AND PROBABILITIES, by Murray Campbell, published in the Globe and Mail on
March 31, 2001.
- An ARTICLE ABOUT
DISEASE PANDEMICS AND FEAR, by Lianne George, published in Maclean's,
September 28, 2005.
- An ARTICLE ABOUT
MY BOOK AND ASSESSING RISK, by Olivia Ward, published in the Toronto Star on
October 8, 2005.
- A FILM-NOIR-STYLE REVIEW OF MY BOOK (scanned:
Page 1,
Page 2),
by Glenn Garnett, published in the Toronto Sun on
October 23, 2005.
- An ARTICLE ABOUT
ME AND MY BOOK, by Tania Therien, published in the
Calgary
Herald, November 19, 2005.
- An ARTICLE ABOUT ME AND MY BOOK
[or here], by Kate Fillion, published in Maclean's,
November 25, 2005.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT CANADIAN ELECTION POLLS, by Robert Benzie, published in the
Toronto Star, January 21, 2006.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT FEAR, by Georgie Binks, on the CBC web site, February 3, 2006.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT ME, MY BOOK, MY TEACHING, AND MY IMPROV, by Stacey
Gibson, published in U
of T Magazine, Spring 2006. Reprinted (in condensed form) in the September 2007
issue of Reader's
Digest Canada, the most
read magazine in Canada.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS' PLAYOFF PROBABILITIES
(or text),
by Mike Strobel,
published in the Toronto
Sun, April 13, 2006. (See also the probability
calculations that I used.)
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT LOTTERY PROBABILITIES, by Ellen Roseman,
published in the Toronto
Star, April 30, 2006.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT THE TELEVISION SHOW 'DEAL OR NO DEAL', by J. Kelly Nestruck,
published in the National
Post, May 30, 2006.
- A
GLOBE AND MAIL FRONT PAGE ARTICLE
AND NEXT-DAY EDITORIAL
AND TORONTO STAR ARTICLE
ABOUT INSIDER LOTTERY WINS.
Also numerous other media coverage, plus Ontario
legislature debate #1
and #2
and a Freakonomics
blog entry and more. All inspired by the Fifth Estate
episode of October 25, 2006 that I
consulted for.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT HOMICIDES AND RANDOMNESS, by Dan Gardner,
published in the Ottawa
Citizen, July 25, 2007.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT HOMICIDE STATISTICS, by Paola Loriggio,
published in the Toronto
Star, January 19, 2008.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT BLACKJACK AND THE MOVIE "21", by Constance Droganes,
published at ctv.ca, March 29, 2008.
- My article
LOTTERY
FRAUD: SOLVING CRIMES USING MATH,
published
in the RCMP
Gazette, Vol. 70, No. 1, February 2008 (aussi
en francais
dans Convergence), based on my earlier
investigations.
- My article I'M BIASED, YOU'RE BIASED,
written for Sublime Magazine,
March 2008.
- A PANEL
REVIEW OF THE MOVIE "21",
published in the National Post,
April 4, 2008.
- SOLVING
EQUATIONS AND SOLVING CRIME, by Thane Burnett, published in the
Toronto Sun, February 22, 2009.
("Rosenthal already defied convention, or at least the image of a math
professor who's married to a librarian.")
- An ARTICLE ABOUT PEDESTRIAN DEATHS in the Toronto Star, with a
SHORTER VERSION on the
front page of Metro News, Jan 29-30, 2010.
- An ARTICLE
ABOUT PROBABILITIES in Vegas
Seven, Feb 18, 2010.
- See also
my book-related publicity activities
and some
U of T News articles
featuring me.
[contact me /
Home Page]