Students

Being the oldest site among the original Seven Wonders, it is not surprising that the Great Pyramid of Giza attracts more than 14 million tourists a year. Seeing these huge structures in the vast, sandy desert, many of these 14 million tourists do not realize the mathematical precision used to build the pyramids. The pyramids reveal the advanced knowledge that the ancient Egyptians possessed in the fields of geometry, trigonometry, and many other mathematical principles. Or, are they just coincidences?

Many of the most important statistical theorems have been discovered around the 40s, which is the same time in which World War 2 occurred (1939/1945). This is of course not a coincidence, one of the paradoxes of war is that if on the one hand it takes and impacts millions and millions of lives, on the other hand it leads to new scientific and technological discoveries. We all agree that wars are terrible, and we would be better off if there were none, but it is important to know how during WW2 statistics played a crucial role in shaping military strategies, allocating resources, and making informed decisions. It has been scientifically proven that the use of statistics had an enormous influence on the war’s outcome.

Imagine if tomorrow you were abducted, and before you knew it, you were trapped in a room with 99 other people who seemed to know nothing more about what was happening than you. You notice that everyone is wearing an orange jumpsuit, which is uniquely numbered. You also notice a door, and you can not help but wonder what is behind it. At this moment, a voice can be heard telling you the rules of the game you are about to play.

In life, we often find ourselves caught in a peculiar paradox. We settle for situations that are less than ideal, believing that they could be worse or that they aren’t so bad after all. Oftentimes, we find ourselves in circumstances that are not sufficiently bad enough to inspire change, yet not good enough to make us truly content. But why do we tend to wait until things reach a breaking point before we take action? Renowned psychologist Daniel Gilbert labelled this phenomenon the “Beta-Region Paradox”, where finding ourselves in a worse situation can actually be preferable to remaining stuck in a state of complacency. In this article, we will explore the Beta-Region Paradox and uncover ways to help you identify these types of situations in your day-to-day life and how to act upon them.