You are here

Make Math Interesting—Using Beer

Writing for PLOS's Sci-Ed blog, Atif Kukaswadia uses the story of William Sealy Gosset, a.k.a. Student, to make the case for livening up math instruction with colorful anecdotes from the discipline's past.

Gosset was the fellow who had to publish his statistical work under a pseudonym because his employer, the brewery of Arthur Guinness and Son, was nervous about its competitors getting hold of trade secrets.

Gosset's "paper for the Guinness company became one of the most important statistical discoveries of the day," Kukaswadia writes, "and the Student’s T-distribution is now an essential part of any introductory statistics course."

Read the post

Start Date: 
Tuesday, December 17, 2013