You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
155 wins, 6 losses, 839 draws
AlphaZero, Google DeepMind’s game-playing artificial intelligence program, crushed one of the strongest chess engines, called Stockfish, in a 1,000-game match, according to a new paper by members of the company in Science. The results appear to cement AlphaZero’s status as the strongest chess-playing entity in the known universe. [Chess.com]
75 years
For the first time in 75 years, the United States has become a net oil exporter — in other words, our exports of crude and refined oil exceeded our imports. That fact is the result of an “unprecedented boom” in production, from Texas and New Mexico to North Dakota to Pennsylvania. The U.S. is the world’s largest petroleum producer, having surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia. [Bloomberg]
Pantone 16-1546
Since 2000, Pantone — the, I guess, color company? — has crowned a Color of the Year. This year, it’s Pantone 16-1546, also known as “Living Coral.” It’s sort of, like, pinkish orange. Maybe a bit of salmon in there. Perhaps some tea rose. Pantone claims it has a “golden undertone,” but I don’t really see it. Anyway it’s a pretty nice color. Would make a snappy necktie, or maybe some socks. [NPR]
+2.7 points
The incumbency advantage — that is, the electoral boost one gets from holding the seat in question — for all House incumbents this year was +2.7 percentage points. As recently as 20 years ago, however, this number was closer to 8 points, my colleague Nathaniel Rakich writes. Congress’s dismal approval ratings these days may have something to do with it. [FiveThirtyEight]
More than $22 million raised
The Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund has raised more than $22 million on GoFundMe, making it the biggest fundraiser in the history of the crowd-funding platform. Time’s Up is “a legal defense fund for victims of workplace sexual misconduct.” [BuzzFeed News]
$1.5 million in medical debt
Two New Yorkers in Ithaca raised $12,500 and sent it to a charity, which then purchased $1.5 million in medical debts for less than a penny on the dollar, and forgave them — 1,284 New Yorkers have had their debts forgiven thanks to these efforts. That’s wonderful and very nice and very Christmassy and all, but begs some larger questions, I think, about the state of health care in this country. [The New York Times]
Love digits? Find even more in FiveThirtyEight’s new book of math and logic puzzles, “The Riddler.” It’s in stores now! I hope you dig it.
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