This morning, the mathematicians Marc Masdeu, Vincent Delecroix and Jean-Philippe Labbé gave two talks at the INS La Garrotxa. The first was to third-year compulsory secondary education (ESO) students (60 students) and the second was to another group of third-year ESO students and A Level students (83 students).

With the title “Domesticant l’atzar”, the mathematicians—Faber residents since Monday, 27 February—talked about what it means for a sequence of numbers to be random and how difficult it is for humans to simulate the behaviour of something as simple as playing heads or tails.  They have also tried to make us see how we can study phenomena such as random walks and discover the order hidden behind seeming randomness.

Faber would like to thank everyone who made this talk possible: Marc Masdeu, Vincent Delecroix and J-Philippe Labbé—for their flexibility and availability—, Jordi Antiga (Director of the INS La Garrotxa), and Assumpta Roig (teacher at the INS La Garrotxa), for making it so much easier for us to organise this activity.