It would be no understatement to say that Thomas Bayes was an obscure figure in the much-storied annals of mathematics and logic for a better part of the last 100 years. And then something happening in the last 10 years and now, he is everywhere – and has even entered mainstream culture by the eponymous... Continue Reading →
Data Science: is Statistical modeling enough?
Hat tip: the great Bill Watterson We are all in online forums with endless discussions about everything related to the current coronavirus situation. My college (IIT Delhi) group is no exception – what is far more interesting is that every once in a while, we go down analysis rabbit holes on a variety of topics:... Continue Reading →
Navigating extreme events with small data
Here’s a thought experiment: Fred and Bay want to run a coin toss experiment. They want to make sure that the coin is completely unbiased – so they go to the US Mint and get a quarter that has passed all its tests (i.e. there is no manufacturing defect[1]); toss the coin 100 times. They... Continue Reading →
Of Tail Events
Thales of Miletus was a Greek mathematician and a pre-Socratic philosopher, generally regarded as the first philosopher on the Greek tradition. And here’s an interesting story about him: he predicted the weather and a good olive harvest for a particular year. He went a step further and reserved all the olive presses in advance at... Continue Reading →
Is the new normal ‘non-normal’?
When all of this is over, we will look back and think about why we ended up at a point where these stark, difficult choices had to be made - and what can we do to avoid these extreme situations in future? Needless to say, decision making under these conditions is hard - but then... Continue Reading →
Celebrating the learning and curious mindset 