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At a bare minimum, understanding entails being able to detect an internal contradiction: a paradox.

William Poundstone

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William Poundstone
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: March 29
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Paradox
Minimum
Contradiction
Understanding
Entails
Able
Detect
Bare
Internals
Internal

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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 on money.
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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 simple rule: When faced with a choice of wagers or investments, choose the one with the highest geometric means of outcomes.
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Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of the philosophy of science.
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Shannon's most radical insight was that meaning was irrelevant.
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Use entropy and you can never lose a debate, von Neumann told Shannon - because no one really knows what entropy is.
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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.
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Samuelson, however, hedged his personal bets - by putting some of his own money in Berkshire Hathaway.
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The best strategy is one that offers the highest compound return consistent with no risk of going broke.
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The story of the Kelly system is a story of secrets - or if you prefer, a story of entropy.
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In real conversations, we are always trying to outguess each other.
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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 improbability.
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Samuelson spotted a mistake in Bacheliers work. Bachelier's model had failed to consider that stock prices cannot fall below zero.
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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 an estate of 170,587 thalers in cash and securities. Nothing is known of Gauss's investment methods.
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There were many at Bell Labs and MIT who compared Shannon's insight to Einstein's. Others found that comparison unfair - unfair to Shannon.
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Kelly was aware that there is one type of favorable bet available to everyone the stock market.
William Poundstone
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The ultimate compound return rate is acutely sensitive to fat tails.
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The assumption that anything true is knowable is the grandfather of paradoxes.
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Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children.
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