This is

This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds

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If you throw two dice, the probability of a double six is one in 36. That sounds

straightforward. But what do we mean by probability? Is chance something which is out there in the world?

Or, by using the concept of probability, are we merely expressing our ignorance of the future?

Might a brilliant physicist be able to use the angle and speed at which the dice are thrown

to calculate what numbers they'll land on? Probability is a notoriously naughty idea to grasp.

So here to help us untangle it is Hugh Mela.

Hugh Mela. Welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you very much.

The topic we're going to focus on is probability.

So what is probability? There are three things that are called

probability. There's a mathematical structure which uses numbers between

naught and one to measure things,

and then there are other things that those numbers are used to measure.

One of them is physical probability, the sort of thing that occurs in physics when you measure the probability of radium atoms

decaying or of a tossed coin landing heads or in epidemiology what is your probability of catching a disease when you're exposed

to population of people who have it. That's one kind of application of the

mathematical theory to something within physics or within science generally or just in everyday life.

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