WS MoreOrLess: The Elliptical Pool Table
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 August 2015
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Loop The ancient Greeks saw magic in the geometry of an ellipse and now mathematical writer Alex Bellos has put this to use in a specially designed table for a specially designed game of pool. Premier League predictions If a martian came to earth wanting to know where each team would finish in the English Premier League this season where should he go to get the most accurate prediction?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the short edition of more or less, first broadcast on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.0 | Thank you for downloading from the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. |
| 0:17.8 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:22.2 | We're your guide to the numbers in the news and in life and I'm |
| 0:26.2 | Tim Harford. In a moment I will be playing a special game of pool. |
| 0:33.0 | Magic! |
| 0:34.0 | That was fantastic. |
| 0:35.0 | For two things, one, it's amazingly satisfying and fun. |
| 0:38.0 | And two, the geometry works. |
| 0:40.0 | But first, over 400 million people each weekend watch games from the world's richest |
| 0:46.0 | football league, the English Premier League. And that means many of you will want to know who's |
| 0:51.2 | going to win the league this season. |
| 0:53.0 | I have Chelsea winning back-to-back titles just, I think defensively. |
| 0:57.0 | They look solid again and they'll get it done. |
| 1:00.0 | In terms of second place, Manchester I did in third Manchester City. |
| 1:05.0 | That's Joe Prince Wright from NBC Sport giving us his predictions for the top three teams |
| 1:10.7 | in this season's Premier League, but why should we trust his predictions? |
| 1:15.0 | Well according to a study conducted by Roger Pelke, who is a professor at the University of Colorado, |
| 1:20.0 | Joe Prince Wright was one of the better journalists at predicting where sides would finish in the Premier League last season. |
| 1:27.0 | Unfortunately that cannot be said for every pundit. |
| 1:31.0 | We really shouldn't give too much credence to predictions until and unless the expert has shown a track record in being able to successfully predict. |
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