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Believe me, there’s nothing boring about statistics. Especially today when we can make the data sing.
With statistics, we can really make sense of the world.
Join me on a fascinating journey to discover how, from crime to health, from language learning to the way science itself is conducted, the answers, the insights and yes the beauty lie in the stats.
The Joy Of Stats will take you on a fascinating journey into the world of statistics - and the remarkable power they have to change our understanding of the world we live in.
Swedish academic superstar Hans Rosling uses the power of statistics to change our understanding of global development over the last 300 years, and he'll be your guide through The Joy Of Stats. From the bowels of some of the world's greatest supercomputers to the frontlines of scientific discovery, Hans exposes the explosive growth of an extraordinary new method of understanding ourselves and our Universe.
The Joy Of Stats can be seen again on BBC Four, Wednesday 13th July at 8.00pm For further transmission details, visit bbc.co.uk.
Watch The Joy Of Stats
The Joy Of Stats: Why you might go up a hill, but come down a crime victim
The Open Univeristy
Plotting San Francisco's crimes onto a topographical map revealed a surprising factor in crime rates: where you are on a hill. Read more : The Joy Of Stats: Why you might go up a hill, but come down a crime victim
The Joy Of Stats: 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes
The Open University
Using top-quality data visualisation, Hans Rosling takes us through 200 years of global development. Read more : The Joy Of Stats: 200 countries, 200 years, 4 minutes
The Joy Of Stats: Above average
The Open University
How many legs does the average Swede have? The surprising answer can tell us a lot about averages... Read more : The Joy Of Stats: Above average
The Joy Of Stats: The Lady With A Data Visualisation
The Open University
Famous for her lamp, it was the light shed by Florence Nightingale's statistics that really saved lives in great numbers. Read more : The Joy Of Stats: The Lady With A Data Visualisation
The Joy Of Stats: Meaningless and meaningful correlations
The Open University
Just because two things might appear to be related, it doesn't mean they are - but it's the meaningful correlations that are the treasures of... Read more : The Joy Of Stats: Meaningless and meaningful correlations
The Joy Of Stats: How statistics make understanding foreign words simpler
The Open University
Through a massive statistical analysis, Google have taught a machine to translate across dozens of languages pretty effectively. Read more : The Joy Of Stats: How statistics make understanding foreign words simpler
More statistics from OpenLearn
Statistics: What is it or what are they?
BBC
How can we hope to understand statistics if we can't even be sure if they're singular or plural? Kevin McConway has an answer Read more : Statistics: What is it or what are they?
Darwin and statistics
Ex_Libris_gul via Flickr
Little did Darwin realise, as he puzzled over the numerical data he collected, that he was laying the foundations of statistics. Kevin McConway tells the... Read more : Darwin and statistics
Confusing Terms In Statistics
BBC
Kevin McConway explains why, for a statistician, reliable and significant have specific meanings Read more : Confusing Terms In Statistics
Introducing data
BBC
Understanding the ebbs and flows of the coastline is not just about observation but also about analysing data. Data is one of those words we... Read more : Introducing data
Mapping Live Shipping Data Around the Isle of Wight
Dreamstime
Tony Hirst explains how a Twitter tweet led him to discover a map of real-time shipping on the Solent. Read more : Mapping Live Shipping Data Around the Isle of Wight
![The Orion Nebula [Image: NASA]](/openlearn/files/ole/imported/4379/onionnebula_superhero.jpg)
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13th July broadcast
What an excellent programme! The Joy of Stats isn't something that would normally grab me, but I came across it by chance last night (luckily near the start of the programme) and it had me gripped. It was most stimulating and thought provoking and I'm sure will attract others into the subject area. The presenters were good. I particularly like the way they were introduced with an associated key fact and the programme clearly demonstrated how technology can bring stats to life Thanks very much and well done!
stocks and flows
Great programme this evening - just one problem. The section on showing the relative scale of numbers made a fundamental error - it put on the same figure a set of 'stocks' [total cost of Iraq war, global climate change fund] and 'rates' or amounts per year [UK deficit].
This is a very serious misundertanding throughout social and economic policy, as well as amongst the general population ... virtually no-one appreciates the difference, for example, between the UK's deficit £bn/year and its debt in £bn - and it is quite meaningless to display the two numbers on the same chart.
One of the commonest problems is that of 'false correlation' - the deficit is rising faster, so the debt is rising faster ... so if the deficit falls, the debt falls - right ? Wrong! .. it keeps rising, but at a slower rate. Same applies to CO2 emission and global warming - rising CO2 emissions leads to rising world temperatures, so cutting CO2 emissions = falling world temperatures, right? Wrong! It leads to still-rising temperatures, but [if we're lucky] at a slower rate. [In fact, even this is untrue, because there are 2 accumulating stocks in this system].
It's a shame that no-one ever seems to make this difference between stocks and flows explicit - and disappointing that an otherwise authoritative programme also gets this basic, and massively important, distinction wrong.
Kim Warren
(Personal detail removed by OpenLearn Moderator 15.07.11)