VIRTUAL OPEN LECTURE: A Brief History of Randomness
From divination and gambling to Modern Probability Theory & Statistics

Location: Zoom Webinar, YouTube Live Stream, Facebook Live Stream
Date: THURSDAY - 9 Jul. 2020 @ 7:00pm
Presenters: Dr Antonios Meimaris

Language of Presentation: English | R.M.L.G.*: 0 - No knowledge of Greek required.
Entry: FREE

Synopsis

Mythology is filled with stories in which the outcome of a game of chance determined the course of events. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades split the universe through a game of dice, King Nala, as depicted in the Mahabharata, played a game of dice and gambled away his wealth and kingdom, and Thoth, the ancient Egyptian god of science, gambled with the Moon and won some moonlight in a game of dice. Humans create gods in their image. Thus, gambling dominates in people's minds from the first years of their existence on Earth.

However, it is only in the late 15th century that the science of randomness begins to develop. This seminar focuses on the history of randomness and the first attempts for its rigorous mathematicalization that led to the current theory of probability and statistics, which are now used in most scientific fields.

Bio

Antonios is a member of the Stochastic Engineering Dynamics Lab at Columbia University, USA.

His research involves working on stochastic problems with applications covering a wide array of disciplines ranging from the physical-mechanical spectrum to fields such as chemistry, biochemistry and ecology with clear connections with Quantitative Finance. He has been awarded the «Postgraduate Publications Award (PPA)» for his doctoral research and subsequently the «Teaching Excellence Award (Best Ph.D. Teaching Associate)» for his teaching.

How To Participate

In order to keep everyone safe we have organized this seminar to be delivered online.
However, we are well aware that for some, a large part of the appeal of our seminars is the very active audience participation. Therefore we are providing two ways for you to enjoy the seminar: 
If you want to actively participate and ask questions at the end of the seminar you will need to join us through a Zoom Webinar - for which you'll need to pre-register by following this link: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5315934285501/WN_UiQ-BkkpT4aml-Q1phiaOw

If you prefer to sit back and enjoy the show, just join us through our Facebook page or our YouTube page where we'll be live streaming the event.