Post by Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica

Mathematics turned out to be very much at home in Amsterdam’s smallest theatre. Last night, Rob van der Mei (CWI/VU), Sandjai Bhulai (VU) and Caroline Jagtenberg (VU) performed at Torpedo Theater as 𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗰𝘁 𝗗𝗿𝗶𝗲, as part of the weekly arts evening De Mus. Their material: waiting times, Hilbert’s Hotel, and a game show dilemma in which probability gives a surprisingly clear answer. Rob explored why waiting for a bus 🚌 often feels longer than it should - the so-called bus paradox. Caroline took the audience through the famous three-door problem 🚪🚪🚪, where intuition and probability do not always point in the same direction. And Sandjai opened the doors of Hilbert’s Hotel 🏨, where infinitely many rooms still lead to surprising complications. An evening of mathematics, confusion and recognition - exactly what you might expect when three scientists try to make sense of the unlikely.