[Book] Chances and Successes -- The Drunkard's Walk Wrap-up

Although regularity can be found in social data, the future of a particular individual is impossible to predict due to

• There are infinitely many possibilities,
• Minor change can lead to a significant change in outcomes (i.e., the Butterfly Effect), and 
• People are irrational. They sometimes act against their best interest. 

For a particular action, we all owe more to the chance (i.e., luck) than what most people realize.

[Book] Past-Present Asymmetry

 “If the future is really chaotic and unpredictable, why after the event has occurred does it seem as if we should have been able to foresee them?”

It is easy to reconstruct (or explain) a present from the past. But it s virtually impossible to predict the future from the present. To reconstruct the present, we can look at the past and make up the reason which leads to the present. If we use the same approach to predict (or extrapolate) the future, before long we will end up with infinitely many possibilities. And, even if you can magically pinpoint the future, the Butterfly Effect can mess things up. A minor event from the present to future can change the future entirely. This is to say “the future is unpredictable”.

Source: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, Chapter 10 [Read the Book Review] [Read the Previous Part] [Read the Next Part].

Mac Book Pro Battery

ผมเพิ่งได้เครื่อง Mac Book Pro มา และพบว่าแบตเตอรี่ของเขามีความจุสูงมากๆ Apple อ้างว่าใช้ได้นานถึง 9 ชั่วโมง แต่ในเครื่องที่ผมใช้ก็คำนวณได้ 9 ชั่วโมงกว่าๆ ซึ่งก็นานมากอยู่ดี ถ้าต้องขึ้นเครื่องบินไปต่างประเทศ คงไม่ต้องกังวลเรื่องแบตเตอรี่หมดบนเครื่องอีกแล้ว 

[Book] Butterfly Effect

No, we are not talking about the movie by Ashton Kutcher. We are going to talk about the Butterfly Effect which is a concept in chaos theory, which says

A flap of butterfly's wings in Brazil can set out a tornado in Texas. 

More generally, few insignificant random events can cause a big impact. This phenomena occur a lot in our daily life. But perhaps, it is referred to as fate, rather than the Butterfly Effect. For example, had Bruce Willis not gone to at attend an Olympic event in 1984, he might have not been a star today, or had you not gone to study abroad, you might have not found the love of your life.

Source: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, Chapter 10 [Read the Book Review] [Read the Previous Part] [Read the Next Part].

[Book] Hot hand fallacy

 Hot hand fallacy states that if performing well in last consecutive trials, a person might perform well in the next trials. In fact, the streak (of well-performance) may just be because of pure chance. If this is the case, the results in the few consecutive trials infer nothing about the next trials.


Hot hand fallacy is perceived in various fields such as sport or business. We usually judge people (e.g., basketball players or companies) by statistics. But we usually misled by a hot hand fallacy. When a good player makes several baskets consecutively, we tend to think that his hand is “hot”, and that his teammates should give him the ball. So if an average player makes several baskets consecutively, does is mean that his is better than a good player? No, because if he is better, his statistics would have been better. The fact that he makes a lot of baskets consecutively implies that he might miss a lot of baskets too. We just don’t know when it will happen.

[Book] People, Perception, Perfection, and Randomness

 Perfection requires perfect perception. It is hard to achieve perfection, since the data we perceives is rarely perfect. So how do we determine whether what we perceive is true. In a more technical term, how do we accept or reject the hypothesis based on what we perceived? In this respect, statisticians resort to "Significant Testing" in order to make decision based on observations.

"Human perception is very narrow. There is only about 1 degree of visual angle around the retina center which has high resolution. Outside this region, the resolution drops off sharply. Therefore, we tend to move our eyes a lot to compensate for the narrow visual area."

[Book] The Dawn of Statistics

Statistics began as early as 1066, when William the conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, conquered and became the King of England. He would like to find out what exactly he did conquer and how much tax he can collect. So he sent out two groups of inspectors to men to do some survey on land and livestock. At that time, people believed that it is the God’s will to let people live or die. So, a survey of people as well as how they born and die were forbidden. As time changes, people changes. In later time, people began to believe that study of population is not against the God’s will, but is the way to understand him better. In the 16th century, the London Bill of Mortality was drafted. It was the first attempts to record people’s birth and death.

"Statistics can provide insights into the system from which the statistics are derived."

Source: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow, Chapter 8 [Read the Book Review] [Read the Previous Part] [Read the Next Part].