Sunday, November 11, 2012

How A Story From World War II Shapes Facebook Today

How A Story From World War II Shapes Facebook Today:



One mathematician’s ingenious solution to armoring heavy bombers inspired Facebook’s research manager to look at Facebook’s ocean of data from a new perspective.



In WWII, Allied bombers were key to strategic attacks, yet these lumbering giants were constantly shot down over enemy territory. The planes needed more armor, but armor is heavy. So extra plating could only go where the planes were being shot the most.
A mathematician named Abraham Wald, a Jew who’d been locked out of university positions and ultimately fled the persecution in his own home country of Hungary, was brought in to oversee the operation. He started with a simple diagram--the outline of a plane--and he marked bullet holes corresponding to where each returning bomber had been shot. The result was the anatomy of common plane damage. The wings, nose, and tail were blackened with bullet holes, so these were the spots that needed more armor.
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