Recently i read this book called “The Drunkards Walk” (as you can see above). I found this book very interesting as it is not a book that looks at randomness as a mathematical concept but instead looks at it through the looking glass of modern times. In this article i aspire to express some of these concepts in an understandable manner and hope to reach out to those non-believers of randomness so that they will open up their eyes to this phenomenon.

Randomness is so clearly rampant in our daily lives. Most people belive that it is DESTINY to go through what you will. But the fact is that there are thousands of outcomes. And how things play out results in a cacophony of situations.

I will be talking about 3 things today

1. The Butterfly Effect

2. Regression towards the mean

3. The Drunkards Walk

The butterfly effect is when a small action can result in a large change in the outcome. The theory believes that if a butterfly were to beat its wings in one end of the world. It would set into effect a whole string of events that could lead to a cyclone in another part of the world. I know this sounds far-fetched but the jist of the theory holds true. Each event leads to another. If one of these were to change it could change the series of events leading to the original outcome.

An example: A student stays in school late into the evening to study hard. He uses the library to do his studying. While there he makes use of the reference books to increase his general knowledge. When he sits for his IQ test he scores a high score because most of the questions that came out have been understood by him already. What if the school imposed a rule saying students are not allowed to stay past school hours. The student will not have done as much work or read the referance books or aced his IQ test. Of course this is only one possible series of outcomes. He could have just as easily gone to a public library and avoided this outcome. The theory just says that if a random occurance were to occur, it would most probably change the eventual situation.

The next thing i wish to talk about is the regression towards the mean. This theory states that an event that shows an exceptional performance during one eventuality during a series of similar repetitions of that event would be followed by a less exceptional performance the next time. I shall illustrate this point with an example.

A pilot does a series of ariel manuvers. All of them identical. At one point of time he does a near perfect arial manuver. But the next time he does it it seems that he has dropped in performance. Why is this so? It is obvious that the ability of this pilot has not changed between these flights. So the reason for his great performance was because a RAMDOM circumstance helped him to get there. Since this occurance cannot be replicated again and again, it shows means that the manuver would most probably drop. The reason this is called regression towards the mean is because an exceptional circumstance would be followed by one that is closer to the ability of the person.

The third and final thing i wish to touch on is the drunkards walk. Its an interesting concept. It again ties in with the other things i said above. On how one thing affects others. Basically, this theory states that we are influenced by many actions and the more prominant ones direct the course we choose to persue.

It was concieved through the observation of pollen on water by Robert Brown. His observation was dubbed Brownian Motion. Invicible and tiny water particles bombard the pollen particle on all sides. On sides where more bombardments occur it will exert a higher force thus moving the partice accordingly. The nature of randomness shows us that random things do occur but sometimes they are not prominent so we write them off and believe that its an action of fate to drive us towards an eventuality.

I only covered a tiny proportion of the book. I highly recommend anyone who is interested in the events of their lives to read it. It covers a wide range of topics. (It even teaches you how to gamble smartly) I do hope this was enlightening. Please to leave comments if you do not unterstand anything. I will address them. Meanwhile if you want a more complete look at the book go here -> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/books/review/Johnson-G-t.html .

Thanks!!!!