Mathematicians: Blaise Pascal

[stretch4859]

When you were talking about the French mathematician with the letter G were you talking about Evariste Galois, couldn't quite make that out, most of them I can,that was at 1:15 . Please respond as I would like to look him up as well. Thanks.

[katiekawaii]

So these assholes are the reason I had to take statistics in college. Thanks a lot, Pascal!

[therealgrampalemon]

my favourite is TyYann

[TheStarProductions1]

I needed to understand their theory on probability for my Stats class and this helped. Thank you very much.

[kristinparkermusic]

I respect and admire your passion and knowledge. It's refreshing to hear from someone so young *and* so articulate!

[kkallebb]

I love this guy.  I wish I could get as excited about math as he is.

[TheRandomSkillz]

But this makes little sense @ 5:01

Only 2 Heads needed to win on one side, 3 tails on the other.

So the Tails side could only win by HTTT, TTT, THTT, TTHT. (Adding another t or h at the end of TTT is pointless, the game is over)

Heads could win by HH, HTH, THH, HTTH, TTHH,

So it is 4 to T, and 5 to H

55% to 45%

So then 3333 to H, and 2667 to T.

I'm probably wrong, so if you could tell me how that be awesome.

[donheller1]

@TheRandomSkillz

Excuse me for my bad English...

I will grab the TTT example.

As it's 50/50 for each step, the fact that you just need 3 steps for TTT, instead of 4 to get a result, makes this path twice as possible as the 4 step paths.

So HH counts as 4, HTH & THH as 2x2 and finally HTTH, THTH & TTHH as 3x1 =11

Versus TTT as 2 and THTT, TTHT & HTTT as 3x1 = 5,

11 vs 5.

[Barraki148]

I got VERY confused right before you mentioned pascals triangle lol

[thepianoaddict]

you look like pascal :P just like the guy from brainiac and topgear looks like newton :P

[thorizzle117]

nice puns ha

[TyYann]

Answering the same question, I would have picked Fermat. For a British one, maybe Alan Turing...

[singingbanana]

I might save Fermat for another time. I can film it here in the room where Andrew Wiles announced his proof for the last theorem. That would be cool.

[TyYann]

Very cool, indeed!

[scotland7yard]

If I was Pascal I would've said "you have to leave, it's not my problem, the pot's all mine"

[singingbanana]

Haha. Forfeit!

[xeonidas]

you should be partner with youtube your videos are great

[singingbanana]

I could be if I wanted to be.

[Kaiserks3338]

Mathematics is magic... and its awesome

[Lummy92]

hai!

[Madetosubscribe]

I like the way you insert all those little jokes about Fermat and Descartes. Well done!

[singingbanana]

I'm glad someone got it!

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

I got it too. I enjoy your humor. Subtle and intellectual.

Thanks for the explanation on my probability issue. I saw it after you went through the numbers.

Probability definitely not my forte. Do you know any decent online resources? I have enough math on my plate at college at the moment.

[singingbanana]

I imagine you got the descartes reference, what with your username :)

I'm glad you saw what I was trying to say. Your way is just as good and gets the same answer. I did it my way so you can see 16 options then I can highlight 11 of them.

Probability is tough. It's a little more subtle than other maths, and can be taught badly and come across as vague. For a certain kind of mathematician it's difficult to get your head around. That would be me, except I was taught well.

[singingbanana]

For probability for a general interested audience see my colleague's channel 'undunc', and their website 'understanding uncertainty'. For more I can only recommend having a google search, but clicking around wikipedia would be enough.

What I didn't do in this video is to give a speech about why probability is so important (and cool). Maybe another time.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

Unfortunately in the US we dont really learn probability.  Not really. College for anything deep. Before that its rather pathetic. And I simply havent taken it in college yet. Very counter-intuitive. Interesting but difficult. Its too "applied" for my tastes though. "Applies" being a bad word.

[allenu]

"Smaller notebook." Good one.

[albat23ross]

by the way i didnt get your opinion about descartes.are you doubting about what?

sorry for my english

[singingbanana]

It was a joke. Descartes famously said "I think therefore I am". So I described him as a philosopher or "he thought, he was".

[albat23ross]

i feel so stupid. your pun was lost in the translation.

in my language this phrase is" i am thinking , i exist."

[singingbanana]

That explains it then!

[albat23ross]

IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT EGYPTIANS indian greeks ect mathematicians.

[Error081688]

Fun video. As an engineering student, I do know about some of Pascal's work with fluids and pressure, and a little about maths, but I did not know about his work in probability. Very inspiring.

I was actually using one of his experiments the other day to explain to a friend why the perpetual motion device I thought I designed in high school would not work.

[xEscapeFatex]

You need more subs/views cause you really are amazing. . .but i guess most of the Youtube community is more into. . .not math. . .haha

[FlameSnake74]

See you later calculator? How about the good 'ol," If you're still watching, see you next time."

[singingbanana]

That's not how it goes! :)

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

Explain something to me. Probability isnt my strong suit, so bare with me. At time stamp 4:57 you have the chart of outcomes. I dont think much of that should even be there. Take the left column for example. If Pascal wins two consecutive games then he has one ten and the game ends. The other two possibilities wont even be played and therefore arent factored in.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

Is Pascal not being credited for more than is even possible?

[singingbanana]

These are 16 equally likely outcomes. The probability of Pascal getting HH and winning is 1/4. Or to put it another way 4/16 - that's what is being counted in the left column. All I am doing is putting all possible futures on an equal footing so they are x/16.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

Sorry, like I said I dont know probability all that well... but I dont think you get what Im saying?!?!

My point is that the second half of the left column cant happen. Future possibilities you say, but that future is impossible. Halfway through the game already ends. The HH possibility terminates there... there is no future beyond that. It seems to me that those four possibilities could be reduced to one.

I dont know if Im making myself clear.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

You are splitting one outcome into four arbitrary and equivalent ones. After HH the game ends. So the subsequent coin flips wont even happen! The only possibility is HH and that is it, with no subsequent games played.

If the rule is first one to ten wins then the game ends at HH. There are no more games to be played whatsoever. So how can we factor them in? The only possibility is to terminate game play with a victor. Playing two more games with four possible outcomes is impossible.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

I hope that is clearer as to what my confusion is.

Probability is weird and I have a slightly different intuitive take on this.

The way I see it you are accounting for four events that are impossible and disregarding the one event that is guaranteed.

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

I probably sound totally foolish.

I just dont get why two flips that are irrelevant to outcome even need to be taken, much less factored in.

I would argue they dont matter not because they have no affect on outcome but because they shouldnt even be made, the game ended two flips beforehand.

If all flips had to be made then I would agree. But all flips didnt have to be made... it was established at the beginning that ten points wins the game.

[singingbanana]

I do understand. If all flips have to be made you will get the same answer than if you stopped after winning.

These are just two ways to get the same result. If you stop, the outcomes are not equally likely, I chose to do it the other way.

If you stop after winning, the probability of pascal winning = P(HH) + P(HTH) + P(THH) + P(THTH) + P(HTTH) + P(TTHH)

= 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/8+ 1/16 + 1/16 + 1/16

= 11/16

[CogitoErgoCogitoSum]

I think I would have nominated Descartes, too. Didnt he merge geometry with mathematics and treated them as one field?

[ap2012]

Yay you're back! Thank you for another great video with lots of interesting info!

Btw, the blue shirt sure makes your blue eyes pop. =)

[ortega24024]

Good choice bananaman (have you seen my rendition of it yet?). Like so many mathematicians (Abel, Galois, Ramanujan, Turing...) Pascal had a raw deal I think. I hope everyone gets reading "Men of mathematics" by E.T. Bell.

[singingbanana]

I'll look out for it myself. I'm glad you liked the choice, I might have got more special maths points if I had picked someone more obscure, and someone more current. But I have a lot of respect for probability and statistics.

[wvannoni]

"Merci beaucoup"; it is probably the best possible answer in an ultimately finite set a characters.

Wahyd Vannoni

[singingbanana]

You're welcome. I decided to slip a maths problem in at the end, but for developing probabilty he is my favourite :)

[RubikMan85]

dude your only two states from me

[ViktorBluhme]

Nice video. I don't really understand why anyone of them accepted the bet.. It sounds kinda stupid to bet so many money on a game which is so much based on coincidence.. See you later, calculator!

[DupBror]

It's still a 50/50% chance. So technically the odds are the same as a heads up game on internet poker (bad example). And a bigger chance of winning than playing for example blackjack. So why isn't does examples stupid?

[singingbanana]

True and good point, but Viktor was only joking. Viktor's lovely.

[DupBror]

Hehe, well I was only trying to give a "smartass" comment. Since coincidence often is the way to win while betting money, and rarely you have such high odds as 50% =).

Love your vids! Would like to see many more math problems.

[DupBror]

Those* should it be, not "does" must have thought of something else first.

[singingbanana]

I knew what you meant, I do that sort of thing all the time :)

[ViktorBluhme]

Those games are kinda stupid, too.. :)

But you're right, many ppl play casino games today, and most of times there are like 1% chance of actually winning something..

[BFG12043]

what a coinsidence, i've just been studyin pascals triangle and the Binomial Expansion malarky in my A-level maths, and using pascals density equations in Physics A-level lol

Ironic? hehe, nice vid

[singingbanana]

Brilliant :) Now you know a bit more about him. I love it!

[cardmagician72]

Where di you get "see you later calculator" from?

[singingbanana]

My housemate, who said it to me once while I was leaving the house. Best joke I've ever heard!

[cardmagician72]

You must not know many good jokes!

[singingbanana]

Don't be a grumpy face.

[sgtforge21]

honestly how much would it cost for you to come to the states and speak at my college?

[Tvanom]

woop 1st comment good vid :p