The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. Leonard is an American theoretical physicist and mathematician, screenwriter and author.
There is no doubt you can learn many lessons from talented people. Leonard is indeed one of those authors you need to consider. Seriously. This 2008 book became a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times notable book, and Leonard received the Robert P. Balles Prize for Critical Thinking for this book. In 2010 Leonard was named the Liber Press Award for the Popularization of Science.
He holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Actually, his dissertation demonstrated a new type of perturbation theory for nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, based upon solving the problem in infinite dimensions then correcting for the fact that we live in three.
Leonard is definitely an author you want to read. Why? Well he joined the faculty at Caltech in 1981 and was then named an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and worked at the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics in Munich, Germany. However (as amazing as it seems) in 1986, he left his position as a full-time professor and researcher to begin writing. He indeed wrote episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation and MacGyver. To further illustrate his talent, he created computer games with Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams. In 2009 he wrote a screenplay for the movie Beyond the Horizon. Above all, Leonard is continuing to working in theoretical physics.
I have also read his book Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change. This book explores the neuroscience of change, and how ‘elastic thinking’ can help us thrive in a world changing faster than ever before. It was a wonderful read.
Randomness? Perhaps not….
Randomness in our everyday life and our cognitive biases end up confusing us and we misunderstand random events. What is confusing is that Leonard demonstrates mathematically that our understanding of randomness is appearing as counterintuitive. Are we in fact ‘masters of our fate’ that so many have believed? We simply are underestimating the impact of randomness. So, once you understand this, we can individually focus upon the elements of our lives that remain in our control. Leonard references the work of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow.
Accordingly, Leonard references the impacts of noted mathematicians Jacob Bernoulli and his law of large numbers, Pierre-Simon Laplace, and Blaise Pascal, the gambler turned mathematician. Just as amazing was their contributions to mathematics developed in the 1600s and early 1700s. In fact, many will enjoy his story of The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from “The Journal of the Whills” as the precursor to Star Wars.
In conclusion, Leonard has written a wonderful book addressing randomness in our lives and the influences of cognitive bias. As with his book Elastic, this is not to be missed.