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

[Monte Davis]

NB that the Wired article is talking about V-1 "buzz bombs," not V-2s --
and while I can't get a working link to the Clarke paper, other secondary
links strongly hint that's what it's about too. I'm inclined to trust the
numbers from my link above, as hundreds of rocket history geeks have been
haggling those out for a long time.

On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 4:19 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> "in the campaign against Britain, 518 rockets were recorded as falling in
> the Greater London Air Defence Zone of 1225 fired, implying an average CEP
> of 12 km." http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/v2.htm
>
> I.e., a rocket had a 50% chance of falling within 12 km of its aim point.
> If I'm right that Roger's grid was 12km x 12km, and if both the grid center
> and the aim point were more or less Charing Cross (traditional benchmark
> for road distances to/from London), then roughly as many fell outside
> Roger's grid as within it.
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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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