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Wizards of Odds: The Power of Probability

Saturday, May 30, 2015
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm

Probability is the backbone of science, but how well do you understand it? Odds are, not as well as you think; it is a surprisingly subtle concept that is often misunderstood, sometimes even by professionals who use it to guide crucial and far-reaching decisions. In this program, experts from technology, physics, medicine, and programming explore the slippery side of probability and the powerful role it plays in modern life.

This program is part of the Big Ideas Series, made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Photograph: Jon Smith

Moderator

John HockenberryJournalist

Three-time Peabody Award winner, four-time Emmy Award winner, and Dateline NBC correspondent John Hockenberry has broad experience as a journalist and commentator for more than two decades. Hockenberry is the anchor of the public radio show The Takeaway on WNYC and PRI.

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Participants

Robert C. GreenGeneticist

Robert C. Green is a medical geneticist who directs the G2P Research Program (genomes2people.org) in translational genomics and health outcomes at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He has been continuously funded by NIH for over 26 years and has published over 300 scientific articles.

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Leonard MlodinowPhysicist, Author

Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and taught at the California Institute of Technology. He is a popular international speaker and the author of numerous academic papers in physics and eight popular science books, including four best sellers.

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Masoud MohseniQuantum Physicist

Masoud Mohseni is a senior research scientist at Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he develops machine-learning algorithms that fundamentally rely on quantum dynamics.

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Alan PetersRoboticist

Alan Peters is the principal architect of Neocortex. He’s also an associate professor of electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University where he supervises research on a humanoid robot, ISAC, in the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory. He has over fifty publications and has secured research funding in excess of $4 million.

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