The Drunkard's Walk

How Randomness Rules Our Lives

By: Leonard Mlodinow

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

The rise and fall of your favorite movie star or the most reviled CEO - in fact, all our destinies - reflects chance as much as planning and innate abilities. Even Roger Maris, who beat Babe Ruth's single season home-run record, was in all likelihood not great but just lucky.

How could it have happened that a wine was given five out of five stars by one journal and called the worst wine of the decade by another? Wine ratings, school grades, political polls, and many other things in daily life are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives fresh insight into what is really meaningful and how we can make decisions based on a deeper truth. From the classroom to the courtroom, from financial markets to supermarkets, from the doctor's office to the Oval Office, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire.

Offering listeners not only a tour of randomness, chance and probability but also a new way of looking at the world, this original, unexpected journey reminds us that much in our lives is about as predictable as the steps of a stumbling man afresh from a night at a bar.

©2008 Leonard Mlodinow (P)2008 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"A wonderful guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives." (Stephen Hawking)
"If you're strong enough to have some of your favorite assumptions challenged, please listen to The Drunkard's Walk....a history, explanation, and exaltation of probability theory....The results are mind-bending." ( Fortune)

SOLID Introduction to Randomness

Sits on my shelf next to all those other soft-serve pop economics, behavioral economics, science and statistics books (think Freakonomics, SuperFreakonomics, Predicitably Irrational, Gang Leader for a Day & Sway). From my perspective Drunkard's Walk is more coherent in theme and better written than most (the ones I named are all ones I feel are top shelf, pop soft-science). Anyway, a very good narrative introduction to both randomness and statistics.

Never would have thought I'd like a book on math

As someone who has never liked math or found it particularly applicable to my own daily life, I wish I had read this book a long time ago. Not only did it clarify some of the concepts of probability and statistics that never really made sense to me, it also planted seeds of interest in fields of study I'd never heard of, such as forensic statistics. Mlodinow does a fantastic job of exploring the balance between order and randomness in popular arenas like Hollywood and the sports world, and somehow manages to make the history of these branches of mathematics interesting and humorous. I plan to revisit this book in the future to see whether its lessons will hold a different meaning at a different point in my life and in the world.

Prerequisite reading for statistic

This book is being sold as a book about randomness -- how our lives are affected by random events... as if we have no control and who knows how our lives will turn out. But really, it's about understanding probability and how our minds create pattern and order sometimes when none exist. Sometimes you can do things that favor your chances if you know what are the factors that can contribute to improving your chances. There is also a lot of information about the development of these theories and a lot of stories of how those theories are applied. This would be an excellent prerequisite reading assignment for a statistic class.

Excellent

I do think this starts off a bit slow, but stick with it. It quickly starts getting better and better. MUCH fascinating info.

Great to refresh knowledge

I have a solid background on probabilities and statistics and technically I didn't learn a lot from the book but the examples, a lot of them!, are the best.

Explain probabilities, normal distribution and variance without a graphics, whiteboard or paper to people without mathematical background is really difficult and this book with very good examples does it!

Excellent reading for everybody.

Carlos.

Full of interesting thought experments

very simalar subject matter to Nassim Taleb's "fooled by randomness" but approched from a different angle. contains great background history of the development of statistics and the author makes an effort to present some difficult subject matter in an interesting way with varying levels of sucess.

A DISCOMFITING TRUTH

"The Drunkard’s Walk" explains a discomfiting truth. Prior to the discovery of quantum physics, most of the scientific community believed cause and effect ruled reality; i.e. scientists like Einstein insisted that God would not play dice. To pre-quantum physics scientists, the only reason “cause and effect” are not perfectly correlated is because a unifying theory remains undiscovered. Leonard Mlodinow, explains that chance or, at best, probabilities are the foundation of reality; i.e. cause and effect are only correlated in the sense of probability; not certainty. Mlodinow’s inference is there is no unified field theory. Einstein went to his grave believing the contrary. Einstein believed there is a unified field theory. Einstein believed quantum physics would eventually become a part of Newton’s “cause and effect” theories but that science had not advanced enough to discover the truth of a Bohr, Einstein, and Newton concordance. Some Scientists suggest string theory is the answer to Einstein’s undiscovered UFT. (Mlodinow notes that string theory is the hottest research area of modern physics.)

Despite reproducible proof of quantum physics as the foundation for reality, the human mind continues to correlate cause with immutable predictive effect; e.g. an investment guru argues that stocks rise or fall in a particular year because either the AFL or the NFL wins a Super-bowl; one manufacturer of vodka is presumed better than another because it is more expensive; if a person is rich he is presumed smarter than a person who is poor, and so on and so on. There is a mind bias for seeing patterns of correlation, whether there is correlation or not. However, Mlodinow explains truth and reality are based on a scale of probabilities; not certainty. Mlodinow is not abandoning correlation but arguing that there is no such thing as certainty.

Until (or if) a Unified Field Theory is discovered, Mlodinow’s discomfiting truth is probability, chance, and persistence are all that make life poorly or well lived.

Less than random review

Mlodinow's writing and Pratt's reading make this most informative book a keeper. I even went out and bought the hard copy. The topic is complicated, yet the message is clear. I even now understand the point of calculus.

The historical background behind studies in chance make this an even more interesting reference.

Though provoking, well written and well read.

This is one of the most interesting books I've "read" in the last year. Interesting enough that I recently listened to it again. The arguments are well presented and the examples are fascinating. Definitely worth it!

very well written and thought provoking

I loved this book! Very high level concepts, theories, problems of randomness clearly explained with real world examples and little known (at least to me) history. The narrator was excellent in his tone and inflection, using a conversational style to hold your interest.