Your Days Are Numbered: the maths of death

Tuesday 25 October, 7.00pm until 9.30pm, Imperial College Union, Beit Quad, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BB

Tickets: £7.50 (£5 concessions) per person. Tickets are available from the Academy of Ideas website.


Drinking is good for you. Being single is bad for you. And in the hour it takes to watch this performance, your life expectancy will go up by 12 minutes.

After sell-out shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Cheltenham Science Festival, the comedy that asks “what are the odds?” comes to Imperial College. Will housework double your risk of dying? Is radiation more dangerous than bees? Find out here.

You have a 0.000043% chance of dying during this show. Comedian Timandra Harkness and stand up mathematician Matt Parker will make sure you die laughing.
“Exponentially Funny” - 3 Weeks

After the show, join the performers and Deborah Ashby, professor, medical statistics and clinical trials; co-director, Imperial Clinical Trials Unit, School of Public Health, Imperial College London and Dr Emma McCoy, head of department of mathematics, Imperial College London for a special Battle of Ideas satellite panel discussion on public health, statistics and evidence.

From what drugs we criminalise to doctors offering advice on how healthily their patients should be living, ‘evidence-based policy’ is the regular cry for those looking for a rational approach to public health. How far can evidence go in deciding what is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ choice? Are we in danger of turning statistical modelling from a useful analytical tool to the new astrology? What role should the latest evidence play in forming public health policy?

Speakers
Timandra Harkness
journalist, writer & broadcaster; presenter, Futureproofing and other BBC Radio 4 programmes; author, Big Data: does size matter?

Matt Parker
stand-up mathematician

Chair:
David Bowden
associate fellow, Academy of Ideas; culture writer

Produced by
David Bowden associate fellow, Academy of Ideas; culture writer
Session partners



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