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August
14, 2007:
Math In Everyday Life
Interview
with math guru Larry Shiller,
www.shillermath.com
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Mike
Carruthers:
The math you learned in high school that you said you'd never
need in real life is actually more a part of your life than you
might realize. Listen to this math.
Larry Shiller:
One out of every hundred thirty-seven drivers is arrested for
DUI. That's about one and a half million arrests a year and
over the course of a lifetime, the driver has a 30% chance of
being involved in an alcohol-related traffic accident.
Mathematician
Larry Shiller of shillermath.com,
says math is a big part of your life whether you realize it
or not. Look at the math in the subject involved of dog bites.
Dogs bite nearly
2% of the population every year; 4.7 million people get dog
bites and of those nearly 800 thousand require medical treatment
- that's a thousand people a day visiting emergency rooms. Dog
bites are the second most common cause of emergency room visits
by children. The annual costs of dog attack victims is estimated
at over a billion dollars.
Here's some interesting
math: Muslims make up about 20% of the world's population, however
most countries either have over 80% Muslim population or almost
zero - there's no country with a 25% Muslim population. And
here's some other interesting math…
There are slow-downs
in traffic for absolutely no reason. So I actually looked at
some differential equations to look at behavior and all it takes
is one or two drivers to drive significantly below the speed
limit and you'll create a traffic jam, nothing else - that's
why rubber-necking is such an issue.
You can link
to Larry's website
from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net
- I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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