EXPERT in the application
of probability and statistics, Professor David Spiegelhalter OBE of the University of Cambridge, spoke on the subject “When is it good to take risks? Navigating the perils of daily life” to students, staff and Old Eleans at yesterday’s (12) annual Osmond Lecture.
Professor Spiegelhalter is the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at the university. He has written for the British Medical Journal, the Royal Statistical Society and appeared on BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince.Through an area on his website, www.understandinguncertainty.org, Professor Spiegelhalter invited people to submit examples of coincidence to enable him to explore the science of surprising matches and to calculate the chance of coincidence in day-to-day life.
The Osmond Lecture was established and endowed by the Old Eleans’ Club to commemorate the career of Leonard Osmond, a science teacher at the school from 1930 to 1970.