Welcome to this new MOOC. An Intuitive Introduction to Probability from the University of Zurich and Coursera. My name is Karl Schmedders. I’m your instructor in this class. I’m a professor of Quantitative Business Administration at the University of Zurich. I’m very passionate about Business Analytics, Probability, Statistics, Optimization, you name it. And I really want to get you excited about probabilistic thinking in this MOOC. I HATE probability. You won’t believe how often I’ve heard those words from my students in the past and maybe you have said it too, maybe you have thought it or a buddy of yours had said the same to you and interestingly, if you google, I hate probability. You will be surprised by the number of hits you’ll find and the number of blogs on this particular topic. Now, all of us have had bad experience in probabilistic or statistical classes. Some of, some students really gave me great course over the year. There was one woman who once told me, Karl, probabilistic thinking is the opposite of common sense. I leave my common sense outside the classroom before I come to your lecture. Another student said, I don’t need probability. I have a good gut feeling to make decisions. So, I know many of us have thought this or have heard these kind of opinions and I understand that given that way we often teach probability that people can think of this or can think of probability this way. Now, instead I really want you to get excited about probabilistic thinking and I wanna show you many cool applications of probability and other applications of probability in everyday life. Let’s think about this, how often do you see probabilities in your life? This morning, I checked the weather forecast and it said, today, there is a 40% chance of rain here in Zurich and Switzerland. 40%, there was already my first probability. How should I think about it? Should I trust that probability? How should I react on this probability? Last year, I had a surgery and afterwards my surgeon told me, Karl, as a result of your condition, your probability of getting cancer is tenfold, but don’t worry, it’s still small. How should I feel about this? How should this affect my lifestyle? How large is 10 times larger than for the rest of you? Another very important question that essentially goes back to probability. This past summer 2016, there was the infamous Brexit vote in the United Kingdom. In the weeks leading up to the vote, you read the newspapers. Oh, the Brexit is becoming more likely. Oh, it’s less likely. Oh, the stock market thinks the probability is this much. Or the opinion poll says the probability of a Brexit is shrinking. Another very important public policy issue where probabilities were talked about over and over in the weeks running up to the vote. Those of you who have flown in the past or have been on the airplanes, you may have noticed that the airlines overbook their flights. They sell 400 tickets even though they only have 300 seats on an airplane. Why are they doing it? I will explain to you how simple probabilistic thinking is behind the airline’s behavior. Those of you who invest money in the stock or bond market or a new ventures, may have thought about how risky is this investment? Again, that’s a probabilistic concept, the riskiness or volatility and we will talk about metrics that describe this. Many of us every day get advertisements. Oh, people like you who bought this book, now also buy this other book. You should buy it too. Why are they sending you this particular advertisement? Again, it goes back to probability and we will talk about this. Even in the court, we all have heard in movies, beyond any reasonable level of doubt. What is that? Another probabilistic statement and I will show you some interesting, thought-provoking examples of using probability in the courts. So you really see that probability is everywhere in our daily lives. Now, if you decide to take this class. I have a favor to ask from you. Have an open mind. I realized many of us, me included, had very frustrating experiences with probability in the past. Give me a chance to get you excited and to show you my enthusiasm about probability. So please have an open mind. My TA, Jose and I, will show you various little examples. Some in Excel where we actually calculate some probabilities. Try to re-enact those on your own computer so that by learning, by doing preps, you also develop a better intuition for probability and have some fun playing with these numbers. So, that’s important to me as well. Try to have some fun and finally contact us with questions into the forum. There're many people here who wanna help you. Jose and me included and so that we have a fun and thoughtful experience here in this new MOOC. Thank you. And I will looking, look forward to seeing you in Lesson 1 of Module 1.
