

When you transmit information long-distance there is always a chance that some of it gets mangled and arrives at the other end corrupted. Luckily, there are clever ways of encoding information which ensure a tiny error rate, even when your communication channel is prone to errors.



An idea called Occam's razor states that the simplest answer is always the best. But is this really true? Computer scientist Noson Yanofsky is trying to find out, applying Kolmogorov complexity to a branch of mathematics known as category theory.

In the TV game show Two Tribes teams can have unequal sizes. Is that fair?


Why the humble average can be grossly misleading.