Summary
Could Bayesian statistics find Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing? This niche form of statistical modelling has been used to find everything from submarines to missing people. More or Less explores how it was used to locate the wreckage of Air France flight 447 from Brazil to France which disappeared in 2009. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of Morales, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.8 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:08.6 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use |
| 0:12.2 | go to BBCWorldService.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:20.0 | Hello and welcome to Morales on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:23.2 | I'm Charlotte MacDonald. |
| 0:25.0 | This week, cancer statistics help find the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. |
| 0:30.0 | In the spring of 1943, the Second World War is raging and German U-boats were sinking ships in the Atlantic. |
| 0:41.0 | Desperate to find the Nazi submarines before they could strike, |
| 0:44.0 | the American and British developed a model to find them. |
| 0:47.0 | Using what is called Bayesian statistics, |
| 0:49.0 | named after an 18th century British Presbyterian minister called Thomas Bayes. |
| 0:54.0 | This type of thinking allows you to assess various scenarios at once, |
| 0:59.0 | even contradictory ones. |
| 1:01.0 | The probability of each being true is brought together to give you the most likely solution. |
| 1:07.0 | And if you find new information, you can revise your model easily. |
| 1:12.0 | Mathematicians working for the American and British navies thought about the different scenarios of where the U-boats could be. |
| 1:18.0 | They then devised a method of assigning a probability to each one |
| 1:22.0 | to work out the most probable location of the submarines, |
| 1:26.0 | adapting their model as they went along. |
| 1:29.0 | Today, those methods are still being used to find everything from missing people to missing planes. |
| 1:37.0 | So could techniques from the Second World War be used to help find the missing Malaysia Airlines plane? |
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