They decided to explore the possibility of a DEATH RAY.
They had been offering a £1,000 prize for anyone who could zap a sheep at a hundred paces. So far, nobody had claimed it.

2/

Unofficially, they sounded out Robert Watson Watt, of the Radio Research Station.
And he posed an abstract maths question to his colleague Skip Wilkins.
3/

Read 19 tweets

Tim Harford

@TimHarford

2 Feb

Some interesting psychology going on around vaccine rollout. UK rollout is among the fastest in the world right now, but last night I saw a self-flagellating piece comparing UK rollout unfavourably to Israel...

... Scotland is doing better than almost anywhwere in the world. But not as well as England. I see a lot of melting down about that...

...my American friends are comparing themselves to UK and Israel and conclude the US rollout is a disaster. Yet US has vaccinated 4x as many per person as France. 3x as many as Germany...

Read 8 tweets

Tim Harford

@TimHarford

1 Feb

Do you want to be able to think more clearly about the world?

Do you want to be able to evaluate the claims that swirl around you in the media and on social media?

1/

Do you wish you knew what questions to ask to sift out the truth from the misinformation?

Are you a curious person, more interested in finding out about the world than in winning some argument on Twitter?

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Would you like to come away from reading the news feeling calmer and better informed, rather than stressed and confused?

If the answer to some of those questions is yes, I have good news: it’s publication week for my new book The Data Detective.
timharford.com/2021/02/announ…

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Read 16 tweets

Tim Harford

@TimHarford

31 Jan

A belated Christmas quiz question for you - what do puzzles, poker, and misinformation have in common? The answer is at the bottom of this thread.
1/

Easier question first. In Santa’s workshop, if it takes five elves five minutes to wrap five presents, how long does it take 50 elves to wrap 50 presents?
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You probably know the answer to that one; it follows a classic formula for a trick question. But as you groped towards the correct answer you may have had to fight off your instinct to blurt out a tempting wrong answer: 50 minutes.
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Read 29 tweets

Tim Harford

@TimHarford

29 Jan

Will it ever end? In November we were celebrating the announcements of several effective vaccines. Now hospitals are overwhelmed and the global death toll is climbing twice as fast as the worst days of the first wave.
At times like this, I reach for my calculator.
1/

There are two reasons why these vaccines, some highly effective, have not yet done anything obvious to save lives or protect hospitals.
The first is evident: not enough people have been vaccinated so far.
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The second reason is that the vaccine takes time to work. In the UK, Margaret Keenan received a first dose of vaccine bright and early on December 8, but it needs a couple of weeks to provide much protection. She and her fellow first-day vaccinees were safer by Christmas.
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Read 16 tweets

Tim Harford

@TimHarford

28 Jan

They called Abraham Bredius 'The Pope', a nickname that poked fun at his self-importance while acknowledging his authority. Bredius was the world's leading scholar of the mysterious Dutch master, Johannes Vermeer.
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When Bredius was younger, he’d made his name by spotting works wrongly attributed to Vermeer. Now, at the age of 82, he had just published a highly respected book and was enjoying a retirement swan song in Monaco.
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It was at this moment, in 1937, that Gerard Boon paid a visit to his villa. Boon, a former Dutch MP, came to Bredius on behalf of dissidents in Mussolini’s Italy. They needed to raise money to fund their escape to the US. Tthey had something which might be of value.
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