Tuesday 02nd July 2013

0930 -- 1030	Ronojoy Adhikari "Nuclear safety and the mathematical quantification of risk" 
		chair: Krishna Maddaly		medium: projector

		Abstract : In our personal and public lives we are daily faced with choices which carry both
		rewards and penalties. We are guided in making such choices by an intuitive notion of risk,
		preferring choices which carry lower risks. I will demonstrate how this intuitive notion of risk
		is made quantitative by using Bayesian probability and the concept of utility. I will then
		show how this mathematical notion of risk is used in estimating the safety of technology
		such as aircrafts and nuclear reactors, whose safe operation brings great reward but
		whose failure brings, equally, great penalties.