Podcast Episodes

Federer’s 54%: Tennis stats explained

How can tennis star Roger Federer have won only 54% of the points he played, but been the best player in the world? Jeff Sackmann, the tennis stats brain behind tennisabstract.com, explains to Tim …

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

The magic of trigonometry

You might have found it boring in school maths classes, but Matt Parker thinks we should all learn to love trigonometry.

The ‘Love Triangle’ author talks to Tim Harford about the maths used in GPS, a…

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

Election endings, tennis and meeting men in finance

Are Labour right about employment? Are the Conservatives right about cutting NHS managers? Are the Lib Dems right about share buyback? Are Reform UK right about their tax plans?

How do they make the …

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

How a tick box doubled the US maternal mortality rates.

he US has been portrayed as in the grip of a maternal mortality crisis. In contrast to most other developed nations, the rate of maternal deaths in the US has been going up since the early 2000s. …

Published on 1 year, 5 months ago

Election claims and erection claims

Are Labour right about the Liz Truss effect on mortgages? Are the Conservatives right about pensioners? Are Plaid Cymru right about spending? Are the Lib Dems right about care funding? Is Count Binfa…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Do ‘pig butchering’ cyber scams make as much as half Cambodia’s GDP?

So-called “pig butchering” scams take billions of dollars from people around the globe. But do the cyber scams run from compounds in Cambodia really take an amount of money equivalent to half that …

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Worse mortgages, better readers, and potholes on the moon

Will Conservative policies raise mortgages by £4800, as Labour claim? Are primary school kids in England the best readers in the (western) world, as the Conservatives claim? Are there more potholes i…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Shakespeare’s maths

AWilliam Shakespeare might well rank as the most influential writer in the English language. But it seems he also had a knack for numbers.

Rob Eastaway, author of Much Ado about Numbers, tells Tim Ha…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Leaflets, taxes, oil workers and classrooms

What’s going on with the dodgy bar charts that political parties put on constituency campaign leaflets?

What’s the truth about tax promises?

Are 100,000 oil workers going to lose their jobs in Scotland…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago

Why medical error is not the third leading cause of death in the US

The claim that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US has been zooming around the internet for years.

This would mean that only heart disease and cancer killed more people than t…

Published on 1 year, 6 months ago