Are We Alone?

We’ve all wondered if there’s other intelligent life out there, and we’ve wondered if we’ll ever make contact with them. But if there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, and each of these stars likely has a planetary system, and many of these planetary systems have Earth-like planets hospitable to life, then how come we haven’t heard from any of these aliens? (more…)

The End of the World

How the world is going to end, or at least how human civilization will end, is something that religious folks and wannabe intellectuals talk about all the time. But what is going to end it all? And when will it happen? Rarely is the subject approached with cool logic, educated foresight, and statistical probabilities. We’re going to give it a shot. (more…)

Chance of Rain?

Was looking at the weather report this morning, and there’s a probability question that has me stumped…

If there’s a 30% chance of rain on Sunday and a 30% chance of rain on Monday, what are the chances that it rains on EITHER of those days? And by EITHER, I mean one or the other or both. (more…)