When mathematicians use this term they have a very precise idea in mind but it is an idea which has many subtleties. One contribution of mathematics to understanding what the future might bring is the notion of expected value. ![]() When thinking about the future either as an individual or part of a group one often has expectations for the future-sometimes good expectations and sometimes ones that seem much less appealing. One reason to have faith in the mathematics of lotteries and casino gambling is that these "businesses" thrive just as long as they have lots of customers! If one had a crystal ball that helped pick the right lottery ticket, one could get a lot of income. Recently there was a staggering large lottery prize of 1.6 billion dollars for the US Powerball Lottery. So should parents vaccinate their kids and should the elderly get flu shots? Some people get allergic reactions to vaccines but the long term history of vaccinations is to have significantly improved the life expectancy and quality of life for many. Whereas getting the flu for younger people is disruptive, for the elderly catching the flu can lead to pneumonia or be life threatening in other ways. For the elderly, it is unclear if some of the vaccinations they had in their youth still are efficacious and then there is the flu, which affects the elderly in a serious way. For the young, getting an illness like whooping cough or measles can cause death. Similar issues come up every year (or sometimes in multiple year cycles) when certain infectious diseases (e.g. Compared with weather forecasting, the forecasting of earthquakes is much less advanced. If the storm doesn't materialize, as sometimes has occurred, this is frustrating to many, but the flip side, not responding strongly enough when lives might be saved, is the issue involved in what happened in Italy with regard to the earthquake forecast. When a major storm approaches, can weather forecasters be blamed if they don't warn of the potential dangers strongly enough? Sometimes due to forecasts, transportation systems that might be damaged by a major storm are shut down preemptively, causing great logistical and economic hardship to many people. In 2014 an appeals court freed the geologists and reduced the sentence of the government official to the relief of scientists around the world but citizens in the courtroom who were relatives of the those who died in L'Aquila decried that the "government" had exonerated itself. After a trial, seven individuals were found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in jail. Geologists around the world expressed concern that while progress had been made about trying to forecast earthquakes, there were no certainties only probabilities in the forecasts that could be made. Computing power and progress in theory have gone a long way to making these reports much more reliable.Ī interesting example of the concerns about avoiding danger from acts of nature was the trial of a group of Italian geologists and a government official for allegedly failing to give proper warning about an earthquake that killed 309 people in L'Aquila, Italy in 2009. They also rely on models of the atmosphere that are rooted in the theory of partial differential equations and numerical methods for solving these equations. These forecasts are created using data from satellites and land-based monitoring and sensor systems. The most common we rely on are the increasingly accurate week-long weather reports that are provided, among others, by the National Weather Service. Mathematical models have been developed that assist with all aspects of natural disasters. In areas where loss of life and property might occur due to these "acts of nature," it would be nice if predictions would make it possible for loss of life to be avoided altogether and property damage be kept to a minimum. ![]() ![]() ![]() Thus, in the United States some parts are prone to tornadoes, large snow falls, others to coastal flooding, hurricanes, river flooding and earthquakes. There are very few places in the world where there are no "external" risks to humans who want to lead trouble-free lives. More about previous themes is available on the Mathematics Awareness Month website. This column honors the theme of Mathematics Awareness Month for 2016, The Future of Prediction.
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