Nassim Taleb
posed exactly that question in his book The Black Swan. The question was
put to the MIT quant and Guido the street wise bookie as
such:
This is a
FAIR coin and FAIR coin toss and it has resulted in four heads in a
row.
The quant
said “Of course not, the fifth trial is an entirely independent event and the
probability is 50/50.”
Guido
said. “It’ll be a heads. Yas jest can’t flip four heads in a
row. The game’s rigged. It’ll be a heads.”
The question
is whether there’s a hidden order in time and space. Benoit Mandelbrot,
the greatest mathematician of our lifetime IMO and the discoverer of the
Mandelbrot set, would say there is a hidden order. But it isn’t a
Gausian “bellcurve” order; its not a gaming coin toss population of events
. It is not linear and likely we will never discover it. Our only
glimpse of it will be through fractal geometry.
Jim
From: realtraders@yahoogroups.com
[mailto:realtraders@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
GerryB
Sent: Sunday, October 25, 2009 7:08 PM
To:
realtraders@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [RT] 1929-1987
Spiral Calendar Analog update
Now, consider that the model HAS SUCCESSFULLY predicted the first
two
out of the four dates? Does that make the improbable less
improbable?
I know it does, but by how much. About that I
don’t have a clue. But,
again, it is interesting.
SAY YOU
FLIP A COIN 4 TIMES IN A ROW AND IT COMES UP
HEADS...........DOES
THAT INCRECREASE THE PROBABILITY THAT ON THE NEXT
FLIP IT WILL NOT BE
HEADS?.................OR DOES IT REMAIN THE SAME:
50/50 AS IN
THE FIRST 4 CASES?????
GERRYB