TEDxAFS - Justin Solonynka, Big Numbers, and VerizonMath

Justin Solonynka a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Abington Friends School in Jenkintown, PA recently gave a presentation on big numbers for their independently organized TED event TEDxAFS.

Justin used a couple of VerizonMath clips to help express the importance of math on our daily lives. He goes on to give a great presentation about probability and some entertaining ways to help make math more approachable and interesting to students. I even learned something very interesting that I had never realized, but I won't mention it as not to spoil it. It was the part about the Milky Way.

Thank you Justin for including my clips in your talk, mentioning this blog, and for making strides to help reduce innumeracy.

Watch it here:

World Science Festival Discusses VerizonMath - Continued

The WSF Website has recently been updated with their discussion on The Illusion of Certainty: Risk, Probability and Chance, which includes a few clips from my now infamous Verizon call.

It was very interesting to see and hear the panellists' and audience's reaction to the clips. I imagine this was the largest gathering yet of folks that could truly appreciate it, all in one place.

Thank you Leonard Mlodinow for choosing to include this in your discussion. By the way, as I watched this I made kind of the same anxious expression you did while waiting for the audience to hear the "punch line". :)

Speaking of probability, I never could have imagined back in 2006 when I originally recorded this CS fiasco that it would wind up being used in such an interesting context, incredible.

Here it is for your nerdy enjoyment:



If you don't want to listen to the whole talk (though it's much less painful than my full recording), the panellists start to discuss it at about 29:00.

World Science Festival discusses VerizonMath

Tonight during a session called "The Illusion of Certainty" clips from my call with the call center reps at Verizon will be referenced. It should be interesting how they work it into the talk.

To watch live visit The World Science Festival website or watch below.

Edit: Broadcast has been delayed. I will update when a new date/link is available.

Watch live streaming video from worldsciencefestival at livestream.com