Levelling the statistical playing field
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 20 August 2012
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Given that some countries are richer than others, and some have larger populations, what should the Olympic medal tally really have looked like? Also: numbers help us understand the world. But for Daniel Tammet, author of “Thinking in Numbers". They don't just help him to understand the world - but to be a part of it.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
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| 0:37.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:40.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use go to BBC World Service. The Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:53.7 | The London Olympics are over and it turns out that the list of the top 10 countries |
| 0:58.2 | which won the most Olympic medals barely changed between 2008 and 2012. |
| 1:03.4 | The top four, the USA, China, Russia and Great Britain, were identical. |
| 1:08.0 | Just one country dropped out, Ukraine. |
| 1:10.4 | It was replaced by Japan. |
| 1:11.8 | But you could argue that standard metal tables are a bit unfair |
| 1:15.3 | because countries are so unequal. We've been wondering whether it's possible to level the playing |
| 1:19.7 | field. I don't mean the actual playing fields which we hope are level already but the statistical |
| 1:24.4 | playing field. Charlotte McDonald's here. |
| 1:27.1 | Come on Charlotte what have been doing? |
| 1:28.7 | Well this is the thought experiment we set ourselves. |
| 1:31.2 | If you adjust for the fact that some countries are richer than others |
| 1:34.5 | and some have more people in them, can we work out what we think the final medal tally |
| 1:39.2 | should look like based on only of those factors. |
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