Wednesday, April 27, 2011

What are the chances?

Now that we got a foothold in algebra, we can dive into probability.
There are these people called actuaries, they mostly work for insurance companies and are about as close as you can get to real fortune tellers. They are paid about 80,000 USD just to start. They are able to calculate how likely something bad is going to happen to you and based from those calculations your premiums will be figured out.
Now while the math involved in that job is a far cry from what youre about to learn, they had to take this same exact lesson.

http://www.khanacademy.org/v/probability--part-1?p=Probability

36 comments:

  1. so, fortune tellers are just high class mathematicians?

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  2. Thanks man, will check out your video!

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  3. That is pretty damn awesome :D

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  4. Oh, this brings back memories of the days in my stats courses at the university,

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  5. @fit4life - And all mathematicians can tell the future.

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  6. Man, i hated probability in math class... thanks for the refresh anyway :)

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  7. I'm the worst at probability :(

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  8. My brother's an actuary, but I can barely do stats. Can't get a hold of the "wellll yes those answers could be correct" idea when working with math.

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  9. Sounds like something out of minority report

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  10. I remember having a hard time in college with probability and math... those people must be really good to work at that.

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  11. Hmm intesting stuff, never really had this problem though :P
    Great post, followed!

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  12. Never heard of them ^^ maybe i could do it too :P

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  13. Wow, that's actually a pretty sweet job!

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  14. Usually math would be pretty boring for me but you are beginning to change that.

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  15. very interessting stuff you have here..
    followed

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  16. I suck at math. Need to study more. Followed

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  17. I remember seeing a film about an actuary, I'm sure it was a comedy.

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  18. I'm stuck behind a bit, i'll catch up :(

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  19. Insurane companies...pretty messed up.

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  20. love math. look forward to seeing more

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  21. I find AP Calc and Stat hard enough. =/

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  22. i love probability, as long as its not trig im happy =p

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  23. preposterous. i cant believe people make money on suspicion too.

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  24. I remember this. It's relatively an easy concept, but it has more applications than you think. Probability is used for me in MMORPGs and other computer games, not to mention gambling and such.

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  25. im terrible at math in general but thanks for the info! might come in handy in my calc class :)

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  26. I was pretty bad at probability in Uni.

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  27. Why didn't I choose this as a career?

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  28. this might save me in my current math class. thanks

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