<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Not that I remember. He isn't rigorously averse to fudging, though: we wouldn't have the title if he weren't scumbling the parabola with rainbows -- which are typically arcs (segments of a circle), occasionally (due to atmospheric anomalies) distorted arcs, but never AFAIK parabolic. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 1:40 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kelber@mindspring.com" target="_blank">kelber@mindspring.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="font-size:13px;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:arial,sans-serif">Sorry for the mistype: *its will* not *it's will*<div><br></div><div>Question, Monte: the bell curve can look like a parabola if you lop off the outliers. Is Pynchon making any metaphorical connections between normal distribution and the parabola anywhere? </div><div><br></div><div>LK<div><div><br><br><blockquote style="padding-left:5px;margin-left:0px;border-left:#0000ff 2px solid;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,sans-serif;color:black">-----Original Message-----
<br>From: Monte Davis <u></u>
<br>Sent: May 13, 2016 1:13 PM
<br>To: "<a href="mailto:kelber@mindspring.com" target="_blank">kelber@mindspring.com</a>" <u></u>
<br>Cc: Thomas Eckhardt <u></u>, “<a href="mailto:pynchon-l@waste.org" target="_blank">pynchon-l@waste.org</a>“ <u></u>
<br>Subject: Re: BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): the sieve of chance
<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small">Very much so -- and P scatters the language of mass-production statistics liberally in the Byron story.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 12:47 PM, <a href="mailto:kelber@mindspring.com" target="_blank">kelber@mindspring.com</a> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kelber@mindspring.com" target="_blank">kelber@mindspring.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div>Sort of the Byron the Bulb issue: is the long-burning bulb asserting it's will, magical, technologically-tampered or just sitting comfortably at the outermost extremes of the bell curve?</div><div><br></div><div>Laura</div><div><br></div><div><font style="color:#333333"><i>Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID</i></font></div></div><div><div><br><br>Monte Davis <<a href="mailto:montedavis49@gmail.com" target="_blank">montedavis49@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px">></span><span style="font-size:12.8px">But once it *has* settled...</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px">That's the crux, and a starting point for a fascinating (some other time) excursus into Bayesian probability. We do much more anthropomorphizing and projection than we know, and a some level we'll always feel that the roulette ball has a memory and "knows" it should start evening things out by settling on red. That feeling grows much faster than the unlikelihood of any given run of black does -- which is why more players flocked to make ever larger bets on red, and overall the casino did very well that night.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Â </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px">> It would have been the same probability even if the ball at that point had settled on black for a few million times in a row, no?</span><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Yes -- aside from the likelihood that you would long since have concluded the wheel must be rigged :-)</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:thomas.eckhardt@uni-bonn.de" target="_blank">thomas.eckhardt@uni-bonn.de</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Â Monte Davis <<a href="mailto:montedavis49@gmail.com" target="_blank">montedavis49@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
P. 56:<br>
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“But squares that have already* had* several hits, I mean—â€<span><br>
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“I’m sorry. That’s the Monte Carlo Fallacy..."<br>
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I look at it like this: It is highly unlikely that the roulette ball settles on black for 26 times in a row. But once it *has* settled on black for 26 times in a row, the probability for it to do so again with the next spin of the wheel is the same as before (48.6 per cent, that is).<br>
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At least that's how I explain it to the kids...<span><br>
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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Where the bettors went wrong was that 26 spins of a roulette wheel simply isn't that large a number. <br>
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Hmmm. It would have been the same probability even if the ball at that point had settled on black for a few million times in a row, no?<br>
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