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The puzzles you’re meant to get wrong
Alex Bellos sets Tim Harford logical conundrums designed to deceive
How do you breed seventeen octillion rats?
Plus, GPs working less, the UK working less, and Wetherspoons wanting to pay less tax.
Are 672 billion pounds of corn eaten in the US every year?
A lot of corn is eaten in the United States, but is it really 2.5kg per person per day?
Should the government target persnuffle?
Plus, childhood obesity, birds hitting windows and Sir David Spiegelhalter’s origin story.
Uncertainty, probability and double yoked eggs
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter on his new book, The Art of Uncertainty
When are numbers like a horse at a gymkhana?
Plus: the taxes of 60 very rich people, water bill spreadsheets, and is 0 a small number?
Nobel prize: Why are some countries so much richer than others?
Why Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics
Do US crime statistics miss out the most violent cities?
Plus: MP capital gains claims and grizzly bear berry habits
Is Trump right about violent crime in Venezuela and the US?
Donald Trump says Venezuela is becoming safer than the US. Is he right?
Are older drivers more dangerous?
Plus, winter fuel deaths, prison sentence maths and leaves on railway tracks.
What can economics learn from sport?
From loss aversion to game theory, how sports provide evidence for economic theories
Do we have enough clothes for the next six generations?
We delve into the stats on the scale of the fashion industry
Did 20 million votes really go missing in the US election?
We investigate a viral graph that suggests turnout was drastically lower than in 2020
Do fossil fuels get $7 trillion in subsidies?
We investigate a huge estimate for how much governments pay to coal, gas and oil
Can Elon Musk save the US Government $2 trillion?
We look at whether DOGE can successfully balance the US budget.
Did one in 10 Greeks die in World War Two?
We investigate if 10 percent of the Greek population died during the second world war
How many Americans live ‘paycheck to paycheck’?
Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?
Fact checking the fascist regime.
Numbers of the year 2024
We ask experts about their favourite stats from 2024.
Numbers of the year part 2
Our listeners favourite numbers of 2024.
Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the country they fled from?
We investigate a refugee claim that is often being taken out of context.
Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?
We investigate if people with red hair have a hidden pain-blocking superpower
Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?
We investigate if the US president’s crypto is really worth tens of billions of dollars.
Are quantum computers already super-powerful?
We investigate what a big claim about the speed of a quantum chip really means
Are black babies in the US really more likely to die under the care of white doctors?
How baby mortality statistics gave a misleading impression about racism in healthcare
Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza?
Are Hamas bombing Israel with condoms sent by the US?
Are 150 year olds getting social security payments?
Is this ‘the biggest fraud in the whole of history’?
Has the US really given Ukraine more aid than Europe?
Donald Trump says the US has given Ukraine more aid than Europe - what does the data say?
Defence Spending, Rare Earths and Trunk Truths
The numbers behind Ukraine’s rare earth worth and the UK’s defence spending ambitions
Is there really $500bn of Rare Earths in Ukraine?
Trump wants access to Ukraine’s Rare Earth deposits.
DOGE, apples and irregular migrants
Fact-checking government efficiency claims in the US.
