Millions of people visit xkcd.com each week to read Randall Munroe's iconic webcomic. His stick-figure drawings about science, technology, language, and love have a large and passionate following. Fans of xkcd ask Munroe a lot of strange questions. What if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light? How fast can you hit a speed bump while driving and live? If there was a robot apocalypse, how long would humanity last? In...

Identifies the qualities of successful people, maintaining that culture, family, and idiosyncratic factors can have a decisive impact on shaping high achievers,

At its optimistic best, America has embraced its identity as the world's melting pot. Today it is on the cusp of becoming a country with no racial majority, and new minorities are poised to exert a profound impact on U.S. society, economy, and politics. The concept of a "minority white" may instill fear among some Americans, but William H. Frey, the man behind the demographic research, points out that demography is destiny, and the fear of a more...

Correlation Is Not Causation. You know it and I know it, and yet we are constantly having to be reminded of it because we can't seem to help but get it wrong. How many times have you heard someone really smart say something like 'wow, this correlation has a p-value of 0.000001 so A must be causing B…'? It's not our fault though – we're only human. We seek explanation for patterns and events that happen around us, and if something defies logic,...

Did you ever want to know the average time it takes to get somewhere based on your cell tower location? Well with statistics, you can calculate things such as intervals, variables, parameters, and others by virtue of using this great math skill. Statistics is concerned with using real world data to effect change in an organization's life cycle. Having a reference guide provides you with the tools needed to solve problems related to customer service,...