Reddit Reddit reviews The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

We found 21 Reddit comments about The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives
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21 Reddit comments about The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives:

u/[deleted] · 4 pointsr/math

Unfortunately, this is very common in legal cases. P(Mr. X was seen with a weapon | he is the killer) is NOT the same as P(Mr. X is the killer | he was seen with a weapon). The Drunkard's Walk does a nice job explaining this for non-mathematically-inclined people.

u/Jackpot777 · 4 pointsr/todayilearned

I found out about this in The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. The lawyer hedged his bets on statistical probability ...and in 99 other parallel universes he would have come out on top. Just the luck of the draw.

If anyone has a passing interest in probability, or mathematics, or just general weirdness, I can't recommend this book enough.

u/freireib · 3 pointsr/math

Disclaimer: I'm an engineer, not a mathematician, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

Early in my grad degree I wanted to master probability and improve my understanding of statistics. The books I used, and loved, are

DeGroot, Probability and Statistics

Rozanov, Probability Theory: A Concise Course

The first is organized very well, with ever increasing difficulty and a good number of solved problems. I also appreciate that as things start to get complicated, he also always bridges everything back to earlier concepts. The books also basically does everything Bayesian and Frequentist side by side, so you get a really good idea of the comparison and arbitraryness.

The second is a good cheap short book basically full of examples. It has just enough math flavor to be mathier, without proofing me to death.

Also, if you're really just jumping into the subject, I would recommend some pop culture math books too, e.g.,

Paulos, Innumeracy

Mlodinow, The Drunkards Walk

Have fun!

u/McCourt · 2 pointsr/DnD

"The Drunkards Walk: how randomness rules our lives" by Leonard Mlodinow : http://www.amazon.ca/The-Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules/dp/0375424040 ... Stephen Hawking calls the book "a wonderfully readable guide to how the laws of randomness affect our lives."

Are you going to argue AGAINST Stephen Hawking? Me neither...

From the Amazon review:

"In this irreverent and illuminating book, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, change, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious cases, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

The rise and fall of your favorite movie star of the most reviled CEO--in fact, of all our destinies--reflects as much as planning and innate abilities. Even the legendary Roger Maris, who beat Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, was in all likelihood not great but just lucky. And it might be shocking to realize that you are twice as likely to be killed in a car accident on your way to buying a lottery ticket than you are to win the lottery.

How could it have happened that a wine was given five out of five stars, the highest rating, in one journal and in another it was called the worst wine of the decade? Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how wine ratings, school grades, political polls, and many other things in daily life are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of change and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives fresh insight into what is really meaningful and how we can make decisions based on a deeper truth. From the classroom to the courtroom, from financial markets to supermarkets, from the doctor's office to the Oval Office, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire.

Offering readers not only a tour of randomness, chance, and probability but also a new way of looking at the world, this original, unexpected journey reminds us that much in our lives is about as predictable as the steps of a stumbling man fresh from a night at the bar."

u/DashingLeech · 2 pointsr/technology

See, this to me is the wrong way to think about business.

RIM was leader in enterprise systems until late last year and is still second. They have huge market share. They also hold niche markets like secure smart phones and tablets. From a business perspective, they are in an enviable position.

The problem isn't with their position; it is with their trend. If they had been on an upward trend to the position they are currently in, everyone would be screaming about how great they are. In business it is position that matters more than trend. A trend can change, and effort can be put in to change the trend if you understand it. Many companies have done this. Apple is a prime example of a failed company that turned it around and became a market leader. Twelve years ago everyone thought of Apple the way people think of RIM today.

RIM is in a good position right now, and if they make the right moves they can reverse that trend. iPhones/iPads are fine, but they aren't perfect. They became fashionable and trendy and possibly overhyped. Steve Jobs was part of that trendiness. With him gone, and iPhone losing its "newness", it seems to me the time is ripe to move to change those trends.

I don't know what the right moves are. The question is whether RIM can figure it out, or gamble correctly, to change those trends. They definitely have the makings for it with top notch hardware and OS software, key differentiators and niches, and potential (such as Android apps working on PlayBook and soon phones).

The over-reliance of investors (and "trendy" consumers) on trends is fairly well documented. (My favorite book on the subject right now is The Drunkards Walk, though a A Random Walk Down Wall Street is probably the better known classic.) It's what causes bubbles on the upswing, and undervalued stocks on the downswing. It's also why investors who ignore those trends and invest via risk management principles tend to do much better than trend followers.

I'm keeping an eye on RIM to see what they do. I certainly won't write them off yet.

u/syslinkdown · 2 pointsr/books

Leonard Mlodinow's The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives is all about probability, chance, and our flawed human perceptions of them. It also touches on causality and how we pick out patterns in the world around us that may or may not be there. It's very well-written and entertaining and has bits of the history of probability mixed in.

u/mariox19 · 2 pointsr/science

You're absolutely right that Reginault is wrong. I first came across this probability brain teaser in The Drunkard's Walk. I could not wrap my head around it after reading it, and so finally I wrote a little program in Python to brute force its way through 10,000 iterations of this game and report the results of sticking with one's gut and then always switching. I ran it over and over, because the results initially shocked me -- even though the book had tried to convince me of what I saw on my computer's screen.

You should always switch. For some reason, after I saw it with my own two eyes, I began to be able to reason through the problem and grasp it intellectually. (That's probably an issue for another book!)

The same way everyone above a certain age takes for granted that we experience optical illusions, we have to realize that we also experience things that could perhaps be called cognitive illusions. Our brains are built a certain way, and we have to work very hard in some cases to go against our brain's gut.

u/baleenonme · 2 pointsr/todayilearned

If you think that's interesting, you might like The Drunkard's Walk.

u/another_user_name · 1 pointr/science

Other books that I found really useful, informative, motivating and accessible in high school include Feynman's QED -- a really cool introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics that I read my senior year -- and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. I think somebody mentioned it already.

Mathematics, the Loss of Certainty is a really good discussion on the history of math. Also quite accessible. I read it my freshman year of college.

More tangential books that I've enjoyed include The Drunkard's Walk and Chances Are. They cover similar ground, though, and I like the latter better.

There's also some pretty good fiction that gives you the flavor of some of the mindbending concepts that can arise from physics. Robert Heinlein's Time for the Stars is a good "juvenile" book that takes a step into the Twin's Paradox. Time dilation pops up in Larry Niven's A World Out of Time as well. For solar system level astrophysics, Niven's The Integral Trees postulates a really cool alternative to planets.

I read most the fiction around the time I was in high school, with the exception of Time for the Stars. Ironically, it's the only one that I can guarantee doesn't have "adult themes." I don't know what sort of restraints your parents put on your reading, though. They're all good books.

The other thing, other than books I mean, you can do is find a mentor or club in your area that could help put you on your way. An astronomy club would be a good idea, but there may also be physics or chemistry styled mentors in your area. They're likely to act out of a local university or research center (I live in Huntsville, Alabama, where Marshall Spaceflight Center is located. I know they have outreach/mentoring programs).

Oh, and I know I'm going on, one last thing that I found really useful and fun was my involvement in summer programs. In my case, the big one was Mississippi Governor's School, a three week summer program. It was an awakening from a social standpoint. (Ten years later, a large proportion of my friends either attended it or I know via some connection to it, still.) And it had an astrophysics class, which was awesome. I know other states have programs like it (assuming you're in the US), and MGS at least is easier to get into than commonly believed. People think a counselor's recommendation is required, but it's not and you get two opportunities to attend, between sophmore and junior and junior and senior years. It's unlikely you're in MS, of course, but other places have similar programs.

Good luck with things and keep us posted. :)

u/archarios · 1 pointr/books

Maybe he could dig The Drunkard's Walk.

u/Yserbius · 1 pointr/IAmA

What did you think of the book The Drunkard's Walk?

u/spyder4 · 1 pointr/IAmA

Have you read this book??

I am reading it at the moment, and it is a fantastic read, with a lot of great real life examples. Someone such as yourself is probably at, or above, this level, but I recommend it for others who are interested in the topic!

u/U747 · 1 pointr/science

If you find people's reactions to the Monty Hall problem fascinating, you should check out The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.

I'm in the process of reading it now, and the author mentions this very encounter between vos Savant and the PhDs.
It's a fun, freakonomics-type read with some good anecdotes.

u/rioter · 1 pointr/AskReddit

It is not truly random. http://www.amazon.com/The-Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules/dp/0375424040 this book will explain everything you ever wanted to know about random!

u/ReliableSource · 1 pointr/atheism

While not specifically about atheism, I think The Drunkard's Walk is a good read that most atheists would appreciate.

u/switchcase · 1 pointr/AskReddit

> The law of large numbers has literally no implications here.

Then you don't understand it, because it has everything to do with gambling. It's even right there in the Wikipedia article on the Law of Large Numbers:

> For example, while a casino may lose money in a single spin of the roulette wheel, its earnings will tend towards a predictable percentage over a large number of spins. Any winning streak by a player will eventually be overcome by the parameters of the game.

So obviously each spin is independent of the last spin's result, however, when you average out the results (which does include past results, that's where your mistake is), you get a percentage carefully calculated to give a house edge.

Now, what this statistics relies on is that all the money is being gambled with. So this winner, if he's clever, can bank most of the money and only gamble with a small subset of it or, even better, quit entirely.

That's why it makes sense for the casino to be giving him free stuff. The more of it he gambles with, the more likely the casino is to win it back.

If you're still not understanding, I recommend you pick up a book on statistics. It's not very intuitive stuff. The Drunkard's Walk is a nice non-technical book that explores just how bad human brains are at dealing with probabilities; it's one of my favourites.

u/idelovski · 1 pointr/croatia

Koja je šansa da upravo čitam The Drunkard's Walk?

Isto tako molio bih izračun koja je šansa da sam upravo jutros pročitao poglavlje koje završava ovako:

> So in this case the chances that a positive test meant I was infected...

A sljedeće počinje ovako:

> Baye's theory shows that a probability...

u/NoTimeForInfinity · 1 pointr/math

This is mostly what I wanted to explore after reading about him in The Drunkard's Walk. I'm very interested in other cases like his. It fascinates me.

u/bapp · 1 pointr/nfl

Good read right here.

It doesn't fulfill the title but it's still interesting basic statistics.

u/AmishHomicide · 1 pointr/AskReddit

The Drunkard's Walk is a great one. Granted you have to enjoy statistics and discussions on probability and randomness.

u/Aoe330 · 1 pointr/atheism

>you don't need to pretend that dreams are 100% scientifically understood

I never said that. I simply stated that there is no evidence that dreams are anything other than brain activity. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that it is only brain activity, and doesn't come from any outside force at all.

>a "drunkard walk" is not sufficient for any scientist

Drunkard's Walk is a term used to express a type of statistical theory. It's fine if you didn't know that.

>I do not discount the possibility that there are non-corporeal entities that are undetectable through current scientific means or organic sensation, which can somehow affect our perceptions or otherwise interact with our unconscious brain.

I discount it because there is no evidence to support it. You may as well believe there is a teapot halfway between here and Mars, or a flying spaghetti monster for that matter.

I believe in evidence. I will follow where that evidence leads. The evidence that dreams are some sort of cosmic vision and not just the brain playing out scenarios is incredibly lacking.

You seem to think I'm arrogant for dismissing your idea in favor of one with greater evidence in it's favor. Try to see it from my perspective; you are claiming that you are party to some secret or greater knowledge of a paranormal or supernatural world, and have at best anecdotal evidence to back up your claim. I on the other hand can go to any campus book store and pick up at least one book about neuroscience that is infinitely more verifiable than any of your anecdotal evidence. Can you really blame me for laughing at your idea?