Levelling the statistical playing field

If you adjust for the fact that some countries are richer than others and some have more people in them, can we work out what the Olympic medal tally should have looked like, based only on those factors? In other words, which countries over and under-achieved at London 2012?

Also, we think numbers help us to understand the world. But for Daniel Tammet, they're a lot more important than that. For him, numbers don't just help him to understand the real world. They're his ticket to being a part of it. We've been talking to Daniel - a mathematical savant - about his new book, Thinking In Numbers.

(Image: A combination of images taken during the Olympic Games in London. Credit: AFP
PHOTO/STAFFSTAFF/AFP/GettyImages)