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Oscars + Math = Who's Probably Going To Win
It's hard to predict the winners of the Oscars, but data scientist Ben Zauzmer has a way that's resulted in some impressive results.
He started trying to figure out how to use statistics to find the winners of the Academy Awards when he was a freshman at Harvard. He'd tried googling who had the statistical advantage in the Oscars race, but when he couldn't find any quick answers, he decided to create a data model to figure it out himself.
Zauzmer's gone on to use that model to make predictions for the Hollywood Reporter, and he uses math to solve other movie problems in his recent book, Oscarmetrics. He even tries figuring out who "should" have won the Oscars each year, based on modern critics, the American Film Institute's rankings, and more.
The Academy Awards are this Sunday night. So if you want to win your office pool, look out for Zauzmer's predictions — and don't tell your coworkers.
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