The central limit theorem started as a bar trick for 18th-century gamblers. Now scientists rely on it every day. No matter where you look, a bell curve is close by. Place a measuring cup in your ...

In March 2025, mathematician Daniel Litt made a bet. Despite the march of progress of artificial intelligence in many fields, he believed his subject was safe, wagering with a colleague that there was ...

Probability underpins AI, cryptography and statistics. However, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell said, "Probability is the most important concept in modern science, especially as nobody has the ...

Linux has long been known as the operating system of developers and power users, but today it’s far more accessible than ever before. Thanks to user-friendly distributions that prioritize simplicity, ...

If mutual funds sold securities and realized gains, those gains need to be distributed to shareholders of record. Those distributions usually occur in November and December. It’s hard to estimate how ...

Viewed creatively, the process for withdrawing required minimum distributions (RMDs) from an individual retirement account payable to a trust resembles a two-act play featuring “the twin pillars.” Act ...

Life is uncertain. None of us know what is going to happen. We know little of what has happened in the past or is happening now outside our immediate experience. Uncertainty has been called the ...

More countries are edging ahead of the United States in math and science achievement, according to the latest results from an international test of 4th and 8th graders in the subjects. The Trends in ...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRA) has a lot of rules related to required minimum distributions (RMDs) from tax-deferred retirement accounts. Can retirees use those rules to their advantage?

The mathematician Daniel Litt has driven social media users to distraction with a series of simple-seeming but counterintuitive probability puzzles. In late January, Daniel Litt posed an innocent ...