Andrew Jaffe shares my love of oddities regarding probability theory:
Before it happened, I would have said slim. But since it happened, 100%.
—Lawrence Fishburne, CSI, on the chances of being hit in the head by a tortoise dropped by a bird of prey.
I’ve never seen CSI. Are they investigating the death of Aeschylus?
I liked this bit on the Daily Show about the Large Hadron Collider for a bunch of reasons, mostly because John Oliver is always great. Among other things, though, it contains a great illustration of how tricky it is, when using a Bayesian approach to probability, to choose the right prior. That bit starts at about 3:07 and is hilariously reprised at the very end, but you should really watch the whole thing if you haven’t seen it.
Since explanations of jokes are never tedious, there’s a bit of exegesis after the jump.