2012
- Opinion: When Politicians Can't Count
Electoral College: A Mathematical Look
Romney and Obama, a coin toss, the mortgage mess and Big Bird.
More 2012 stories...
January-June 2011
- Scaling Up Is So Very Hard To Do
- Logical Liars, Paradoxical Politicians
- End Foreign Aid, Save the Economy? Doesn't Add Up
- Do Testing, Hiring Disparities Imply Bias?
- Problem With Studies: Why They Get It Wrong
A mathematician looks at results of changes in the scale of physical objects
More January-June 2011 stories...
July-December 2010
- What Baseball Can Teach About Statistics
- How to Get a Fair Result From a Coin Flip
- Does Summer Mean More Boy Babies?
A mathematician makes sense of statistics.
More July-December 2010 stories...
January-June 2010
- How Much Oil's Spilling? It's Not Rocket Science
- Can You Solve These Number Puzzles?
- Who's Counting: Humpty Dumpty's Take on the News
- Who's Counting: Jobs, Health Care and Twitter
- Did Netflix Out Customer? Private Details, Public
- Medical Stats: Not Always What They Seem
Columnist says BP could have gauged spill volume with elementary geometry.
More January-June 2010 stories...
July-December 2009
- Are Wall St. Big Shots Cutting in Line?
- Test Yourself: Which Tabloid Heds Actually True?
- Number Games: Misleading Nos. in the News
- Nudging: How to Get People to Do Right Thing
- Watch Your Tongue! Irish Ban Blasphemy
- Bad Things in Threes? It Doesn't Add Up
Columnist compares superfast trades to the supermarket fast lane.
More July-December 2009 stories...
January-June 2009
- A Cancer Drug From Sunny Thailand?
- Problem With Drug Studies: The Patients?
- Seduce Me, Swindle Me With ... Logic?
- Stimulus Psych 101: Economics vs. Politics
- Imp in a Bottle: It's More Than Madoff
- Now Boarding: A Better Way to Load a Plane
Some studies suggest that a vitamin supplement could protect against cancer.
More January-June 2009 stories...
July-December 2008
- Big Brother in a Chip: Good for You?
- Math Hits the News ... Sinks the Markets?
- Financial Rescue? The Math Is Fuzzy
- Virtual Elections Predict Nov. Outcome
- War, Spying and Party Game Delusions
A new book explores the mathematical tricks that make our lives easier.
More July-December 2008 stories...
July-December 2007
- Could a President Pass This Test?
- Deny All You Want, They'll Still Believe
- 56*: If Bonds Gets Asterisk, Should Joe D?
- Math: Gift from God or Work of Man?
- Solutions for 'Sicko' Health Care Holes?
- Can't Pick One Candidate? Vote for Many
Employers test applicants' mettle with logic puzzles. How would politicians do?
More July-December 2007 stories...
January-June 2007
- Borat, Colbert and Our Loopy Selves
- An Inconvenient Puzzle: Global Warming and ... Genies?
- Who's Counting: A Card Trick and a Religious Hoax
- Who's Counting: Pictures, Statistics and Genocide
- How Iraq Trillion Could Have Been Spent
- Who's Counting: Health, Wealth and Happiness
Book says our own reality is complicated and multilayered.
More January-June 2007 stories...
July-December 2006
- Who's Counting: The Monty Hall Problem
- Who's Counting: Which 'Experts' Make Better Political Predictions?
- Who's Counting: Hacking Diebold Voting Machines
- What's Wrong With Creationist Probability?
- Who's Counting: It's Mean to Ignore the Median
- Who's Counting: Cheney's One Percent Doctrine
Game Shows, a Variant Puzzle and a General Question
More July-December 2006 stories...
January-June 2006
- Who's Counting: Jesus' Descendants
- Who's Counting: Sexonomics -- Prostitutes' Incomes
- Who's Counting: Distrusting Atheists
- Who's Counting: New Blogs, New Songs and News Stories
- Of Wiretaps, Google Searches and Handguns
- Who's Counting: Flu Deaths, Iraqi Dead Numbers Skewed
Plus Sexual Predators and Home Run Records
More January-June 2006 stories...
July-December 2005
- Who's Counting: Knowledge Can Be Powerful
- Who's Counting: Abortion Through the Looking Glass
- Risks and Rewards
- Complexity and Intelligent Design
- Why Medical Studies Are Often Wrong
- A Book With a Theory of Everything?
The Nobel Prize in Economics, the Stock Market and Subterranean Information Processing
More July-December 2005 stories...
January-June 2005
- What Numbers Reveal -- From Sumo Wrestlers to Professors
- Who's Counting: Math in Narratives
- Who's Counting: Why We're Not Giants
- Who's Counting: Google Made Surreal
- Who's Counting: Accounting for Lower Girls' Math Scores
- Who's Counting: Double Deficits
John Allen Paulos Explains How Numbers Can Suggest Fishy Business
More January-June 2005 stories...
July-December 2004
- Misleading Numbers in the News
- Complexity, Randomness and Impossible Tasks
- Commentary: How to Prevent Nuclear Terror
- Math Model Predicts a Bush Win
- Why People Vote Like Their Neighbors
- Imagining a Hit Thriller With Number 'e'
A Look at Numbers Behind Social Security, Illegal Immigrants and Iraqi Civilians Killed
More July-December 2004 stories...
January-June 2004
- Paulos: Psychology Offers Insight Into War
- Paulos: How to Calculate Chances of Doomsday
- Paulos: Gibson's Film Disregards Hazy Historical Fact
- Infinity: Novelist's Math, Physicist's Drama
- Why Adam Is Younger Than Eve
- A Proposed Math Quiz for Presidential Candidates
From War's Horror to Coincidence, Psychology and Math Offer Insight
More January-June 2004 stories...
July-December 2003
- Brain Teasers on Lying Politicians
- Probabilities Can Mislead in Politics and Baseball
- 'Bright' Movement Fights for the Non-Religious
- Tough Puzzles to Start the School Year
- Behavioral Puzzles in Business and Diplomacy
- Mathematical Oddities in Affirmative Action
Politicians, Liars and Mathematical Puzzles
More July-December 2003 stories...
January-June 2003
- From Enrico Fermi to Bill Bennett
- How We Guess What Others Will Do
- Lanchester's Law: Too Few American Soldiers?
- Calculating Support for a War in Iraq
- Mathematical Solutions for Maintaining Privacy
- Who's Counting?: Privacy and Terrorists
How Much Tea in China? How Many Hours Did Bennett Gamble? There Are Ways to Estimate
More January-June 2003 stories...
July-December 2002
- Who’s Counting?: Probability and Risk in the News
- The 9-11 Lottery Coincidence
- Weighing the Risks of Hormone Therapy
- Modest Proposals for Safer Road Journeys
- Columnist Paulos Explores a New Kind of Science
- Late Biologist Gould Used Math to Clarify Arguments
The Probability and Risk in Snipers, Baseball, and Elections
More July-December 2002 stories...
January-June 2002
- Late Biologist Gould Used Math to Clarify Arguments
- Topology and the Million-Dollar Poincare Conjecture
- Columnist: It's How Votes Get Counted That Counts
- Math Theory Offers Way to Detect Cooked Books
- John Allen Paulos Explains How Math Is Rooted in Metaphors
- Numbers Reveal Gravity of Obesity Problem
Biologist and Writer Gould Used Math to Clarify His Arguments
More January-June 2002 stories...
July-December 2001
- Could You Solve This $1 Million Hat Trick?
- Drug Hoarding and 'Prisoner's Dilemma'
- In Tragedy, the Nonsense of Numbers
- Exploring the Mathematical Brain
- Columnist Considers Placebo Effect in Politics
- Do SAT Scores Really Predict Success?
A Hat Puzzle Whose Solution Could Help Computers Make Fewer Mistakes
More July-December 2001 stories...
January-June 2001
- The Paradox of Averages
- An American Prophet
- Monk's 'Startling' Math Discovery
- Do Concealed Guns Reduce Crime?
- The Math of Confused Eyewitnesses
- Seeking Order in Randomness
Average Paradoxes That Went to College
More January-June 2001 stories...
July-December 2000
- Paulos: Statistical Ties and Coin Flips
- Why Fuzzy Math Makes Sense in Politics
- Why Behavior Overshadows Statistics
- The Math of Politcal Platforms
- Who's Counting: Costs For AIDS in Africa
- Who's Counting: Math vs. Miracles
From Butterfly Ballots to Butterfly Effects
More July-December 2000 stories...
January-July 2000
- Who's Counting: Winning at Losing Games
- The Ups and Downs of Rankings
- Prove a Theorem, Win $1,000,000!
- Science Quiz for Presidential Candidates
- The Economics of Fickleness
- Who's Counting? Bad Systems, Not Bad Medicine
A New Paradox in the World of Probability
More January-July 2000 stories...
