Maths and the stock market

This episode of More or Less was broadcast on Thursday, 17 July, 2003 on BBC Radio 4 at 1500 BST.

Can mathematics help us become stock market millionaires?

 Click here to listen to the programme

John Allen Paulos, writer, commentator and Professor of Mathematics at Temple University in Philidelphia used to think so.

In 2000 he decided to apply his mathematical knowledge to playing the stock market.

However his formidable intellect and mathematical concepts failed to stop him getting caught up in dotcom mania and losing everything.

Paulos talked to presenter Andrew Dilnot about the humbling experience of being a stock market loser.

And, has Britain become less divided in the post Thatcher era? A recent analysis of the latest Census data, suggests not.

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Producer: Michael Blastland
Editor: Nicola Meyrick