The Man Who Measured Everything: The Scientific Cup of Tea

Francis Galton:

I had a theory on making the perfect cup as tea. Subhandra will explain.

Subhadra Das:

It was again tried and tested by scientific experiment. So he spent about three months working out an algorithm — which I can't quote off the top of my head — but it's something like tea equals, which deals with the proper quantity of tea, the temperature of the water, the volume of the vessel you're brewing in. And of course there's the complementary paper on how to cut a cake on scientific principles. I know a lot of people think that this is quite humorous and a very British and eccentric thing to be thinking about — tea and cake — but anyone who's ever bought a cup of coffee from an automatic coffee machine will know that there is a mathematical principle that makes that possible. And he was the one that sort of came up with that way of thinking. So in many ways, 150 years ahead of his time.

Francis Galton:

Key fingerprints, the wisdom of crowds, the bell curve, and yes, the gloves.

I measured a great deal in my 89 years, not all of it wisely. But if I taught anything worth remembering, it is this: look for the pattern. Even in chaos, there is order — if you measure carefully enough. Thank you for remembering me. It appears I am no longer quite so forgotten.

DISCLOSURES:

This video is for educational and informational purposes only. It uses the Galton Board as a conceptual statistical illustration of how random outcomes can cluster around a mean. It is not intended to depict actual or hypothetical investment performance, the behavior of any index, or the results of any investment strategy.

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