Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (Incerto, #1)

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

These nonlinear dynamics have a bookstore name, “chaos theory,” which is a misnomer because it has nothing to do with chaos. Chaos theory concerns itself primarily with functions in which a small input can lead to a disproportionate response.

Population models, for instance, can lead to a path of explosive growth, or extinction of a species, depending on a very small difference in the population at a starting point in time.

Another popular scientific analogy is the weather, where it has been shown that a simple butterfly fluttering its wings in Indi...

But the classics have their share to offer as well: Pascal (he of the wager in Chapter 7) said that if Cleopatra’s nose had been slightly shorter, the world’s fate would have changed. Cleopatra had comely features dominated by a thin and elongated nose that made Julius Caesar and his successor, Marc Antony, fall for her (here the intellectual snob in me cannot resist dissenting against conventional wisdom; Plutarch claimed that it was Cleopatra’s skills in conversation, r...

It is an interesting attribute of fame that it has its own dynamics. An actor becomes known by some parts of the public because he is known by other parts of the public.