The Maths of Life and Death introduction and comment 1A Milton (1)
Storyboard Text
- Hola, I'm the famous mathematician Milton! Today, we're going to talk about "The Maths of Life and Death" by Kit Yates. It is not your normal textbooks.
- Instead, it's a fun book about how math miscalculations could affect the lives and deaths of different people. Let's dive into it!
- 3.141592653...
- Around 1970 to 1980, a mother -- Sally Clarke returned to home after work. However, when she checked on her 8 months infant son, Harry, she found him dead in his crib and his skin was all cold and rigid. Sally screamed but immediately called the police.
- This wasn't the first time that it had happened to Sally and her husband. About a year ago, his 11 year old son died from a lower-respiratory-tract infection. After examining Harry's body, the doctors thought that he had died from the same infection. However, the judge of the case miscalculated that the chance of having the infection is 1 out of 73 million. Consequently, he thought that it was too rare for it to happen to the same family twice and arrested Sally for suspect of murder of her sons.
- Sally spent 11 years in prison but her husband kept on believing that she was innocent. So, her husband invited a mathematician to calculate in the matter. Finally, after Sally has spent 13 torturing years in prison, she was on court again. The mathematician proved that instead of the chance 1 in 73 million, the infection could be found in 1 out of 1073 people, especially children, Sally was released.
- Sally reunited with her husband. However, Sally could not stand her neighbours still blaming her as a murderer and died of stress. Her husband died two years later from grief.
- A miscalculation of the judge of the case indirectly took away the lives of two innocent people.
- I was fascinated by the book after first sight and I almost fell in love with it. I enjoy reading the Sally Clarke case most and I highly recommend you to read the book and learn your mathematics! :)
- ~END~
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