BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): the sieve of chance

[Mark Kohut]

Did we know that a couple guys did a study of bombing in London? (From
Wikipedia on Poisson distribution)


   1.  Clarke, R. D. (1946). "An application of the Poisson distribution"
   <http://www.actuaries.org.uk/sites/all/files/documents/pdf/0481.pdf>
   (PDF). *Journal of the Institute of Actuaries* *72*: 481.
   2. *Jump up ^
   <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution#cite_ref-33>* Aatish
   Bhatia. "What does randomness look like?"
   <http://www.wired.com/2012/12/what-does-randomness-look-like/>. Within a
   large area of London, the bombs weren’t being targeted. They rained down at
   random in a devastating, city-wide game of Russian roulette.


On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 2:29 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> So more on a Fun With Geometry level.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Monte Davis
> Sent: May 13, 2016 2:23 PM
> To: kelber
> Cc: Thomas Eckhardt , “pynchon-l at waste.org“
> Subject: Re: BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): the sieve of chance
>
> 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.
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 1:40 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Sorry for the mistype: *its will* not *it's will*
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> LK
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Monte Davis
>> Sent: May 13, 2016 1:13 PM
>> To: "kelber at mindspring.com"
>> Cc: Thomas Eckhardt , “pynchon-l at waste.org“
>> Subject: Re: BtZ42 Section 9 (pp 53-60): the sieve of chance
>>
>> Very much so -- and P scatters the language of mass-production statistics
>> liberally in the Byron story.
>>
>> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 12:47 PM, kelber at mindspring.com <
>> kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>> 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?
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>> *Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID*
>>>
>>>
>>> Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >But once it *has* settled...
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> > 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?
>>>
>>> Yes -- aside from the likelihood that you would long since have
>>> concluded the wheel must be rigged :-)
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 9:32 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
>>> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> P. 56:
>>>>>
>>>>> “But squares that have already* had* several hits, I mean—”
>>>>>
>>>>> “I’m sorry. That’s the Monte Carlo Fallacy..."
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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).
>>>>
>>>> At least that's how I explain it to the kids...
>>>>
>>>> Where the bettors went wrong was that 26 spins of a roulette wheel
>>>>> simply isn't that large a number.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 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?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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