ANTOINE ROLLAND
12 articles published in Tangente
KnowledgeN°228Feb 13, 2026How are statistical data collected in France?
Official statistics are governed by strict rules for surveys. Discover the institutions involved, multimode data collection and the biases inherent in each method.
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History and CultureN°218Jun 12, 2024Simpson: beyond appearances
Could something that is true in every subgroup of a population become false when the population is considered as a whole? How is that possible? This is exactly what Simpson's paradox—the best-known paradox in statistics—shows.
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Math for everyoneN°213Aug 28, 2023Counting squirrels and other wild animals
By definition, wild animals cannot be counted systematically and exhaustively: it is difficult to warn them that a census taker will be calling at their home next Monday! This is where statistics—and estimation theory in particular—comes to the rescue.
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Math for everyoneN°87Aug 24, 2023Measuring social inequality
Statisticians often publish averages, reducing a snapshot of a country's socioeconomic situation to a single figure. But these averages often (always?) conceal stark disparities. One way to bring them into sharper focus is to quantify inequality as well.
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Math for everyoneN°86May 17, 2023A few essential terms
A quick refresher on a few statistical terms to get us started.
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Everyday MathN°86May 15, 2023Editorial
Statistics is one of the branches of mathematics with the widest range of applications. It emerged in the 19th century and developed in the early 20th; today, it is more relevant than ever, providing general methods for working with data.
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Games and ChallengesN°83Aug 23, 2022Board games and chance
What role does chance play in a board game? It can vary widely, ranging from total dominance, where players have no say at all, to complete absence. Between the two extremes, the strategies of many games rely on optimizing probabilistic principles.
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Math for everyoneN°81Feb 08, 2022GPS and the shortest path…
"At the roundabout, turn right": but how does our GPS find the shortest route to our destination?
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Math for everyoneN°198Feb 02, 2021Counting protesters
One hundred thousand protesters, according to the organizers; twenty thousand, according to the police! The discrepancy between estimates of the number of people in a march is a perennial source of puzzlement—and mockery—for outside observers. Is there really no way to provide a reliable figure for the number of protesters?
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Math for everyoneN°196Oct 13, 2020How to test without making mistakes
Statistical tests are invaluable for assessing a hypothesis about a population from observations of a random sample. But they are also the source of many errors. Let's learn how to avoid them—in both methodology and the interpretation of results!
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Math for everyoneN°195Jul 14, 2020The 100 km rule
To prevent the virus from surging again as lockdown restrictions were lifted, people could travel only within a hundred-kilometre radius of their home or within their own department. This was far from fair to everyone! Who were the lucky ones?
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Math for everyoneN°192Jan 21, 2020Who (really) holds power in Parliament?
In May 2019, following the European Parliament elections, some groups gained seats, but not enough to influence the debates. Others lost seats, yet still seem indispensable. A group’s real power cannot be reduced to its number of seats!
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