In this blog post i will be summarizing and analyzing the Drunkard's Walk How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, pages 1-60. Mlodinow starts readers off by telling them about a man who won a huge sum of money by thinking that 7 multiplied by 7 was 48. And then continues on in saying how everyone makes mistakes like that but they are most of the time less noticable, even though they are just as significant. In the first few chapters Mlodinow clearly spells out the basic laws of probability and points out in numerous occasions that human logic is completly flawed when it comes to probability. One example constitutes a CEO working in hollywood. For the first 5 years she managed to pull her filming company up and was paid hansomly for doing so, but on her sixth year she didn't manage to well. Because of that she was fired. However Mlodinow shows us through probability her dissapointing sixth year was just unlucky. Her first five years were above average and due to statistics, Lansing (the director/CEO) would have to equal out to her mean. Another more common example is when a person does good and they get rewarded or a person does bad and get punished. Usually the next day the person who did good does worse and the person who got punished does better. This is because when the person did exceptionally well or bad they are far away from their average and naturally they are going to get closer, so the reward/punishment doesn't really effect their behavor positivly or negativly.
In the final chapter Moldinow attempts to explain the most random phenominom ever. Imagine this you have 3 doors and one has a car behind it and the others have nothing. You pick a door and a person reveals that one of the doors you didn't pick has nothing behind it, is it in your best interest to switch or stay with the original door? It is always in your interest to switch. For this problem you must consider all possible out comes. THere are 2 outcomes, in one scenario you chose the lucky door one your first try, 1/3 chance. In the other scenario you didn't choose the lucky door, 2/3 scenario and a person reveals that all of the other non-car doors. It is kinda hard to explain but i will do my best. It is much easier to explain if there are 100 doors, and only one has a car behind it. lucky guess scenario is 1/100 and the other scenario (where all the doors are open except 2, the one you have chosen and the one the person doesn't open), is 99/100 where you don't choose the lucky door and now you are presented with 1 other door. The reason for this is because the person opening the doors de-randomizes the game. He does this because he will never reveal the door with the car behind it. When this was first published in a journal by a very intelligent women, almost all professors on statistics were outraged at her and told her that she was incorrect and crazy. Later she proved this mathematicaly and some still didn't believe her. Mlodinow finishes this chapter by talking about the father of statistics, Geralamo Cardano. He was an italian doctor who was very poor during the middle ages and his father was killed by his brother in the inquisition. However he managed to reach fame and fortune by saving money through gambling, (he would only gamble when in his favor, and he knew probability well enough to make money). Then he became a wealthy physician, but later in life lost his fortune because of a scandal involving his son. His work on statistics wasn't earthshaking due to the lack of math symbols, but he is recognized because he was the first one to do any work with statistics.
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3 comments:
This sounds like a good read. Statistics seems like it can be applied to so many different things that knowing a lot about it would be fun. Writing a book about it seems like it would be hard, especially a captivating one, so the author must be pretty good.
Statistics is probably the most useful thing that we can take with us in our lives. Most of us usually don't understand the chances and the probability behind it, but only with many trials is it possible. When you explain the door problem, I can see why it is hard, but when you put more choices in there, it is made easier to understand for people who aren't logical, like me.
I disagree with Ngoc. Statistics are horrible and terribly boring and frustrating and are almost always never accurate. But that being said, they can become useful when they are carefully taken, and not put into worthless AP Stats homework questions. I would wonder how interesting this book is considering the lackluster nature of statistics, except that I still cannot figure out that door problem. Maybe I'll force myself to read the book and understand it. Good job posting on a terrible topic.
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