Are there any mythical beasts which aren't simple pastiches of nature? Centaurs, minotaurs, unicorns, griffons, chimeras, sphinxes, manticores, and the like don't speak well for the human imagination. None is as novel as a kangaroo or starfish. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Samuelson spotted a mistake in Bacheliers work. Bachelier's model had failed to consider that stock prices cannot fall below zero. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
There is a deep connection between Bernoulli's dictum and John Kelly's 1956 publication. It turns out that Kelly's prescription can be restated as this… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
“In view of this, it may seem remarkable that anything as complex as a text of Hamlet exists. The observation that Hamlet was written… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
“In 1894 Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patents expired. Within a few years, over 6,000 local telephone companies were competing for the U.S. market.” — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Bernoulli's real contribution was to coin a word. The word has been translated into English as "utility". It describes this subjective value people place… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
There were many at Bell Labs and MIT who compared Shannon's insight to Einstein's. Others found that comparison unfair - unfair to Shannon. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Carl Friedrich Gauss, often rated the greatest mathematician of all time, played the market. On a salary of 1,000 thalers a year, Euler left… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
The more improbable the message, the less "compressible" it is, and the more bandwidth it requires. This is Shannon's point: the essence is its… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
“The stumbling block isn't the certainty effect per se. It's the way that smart people are influenced by mere words, by the way the… — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
The ultimate compound return rate is acutely sensitive to fat tails. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
Your second ducat, like your second million, is never quite as sweet. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
The best paradoxes raise questions about what kinds of contradictions can occur-what species of impossibilities are possible. — William Poundstone Copy Share Image
