Claude Shannon, the Las Vegas Shark (2017)(nautil.us)
nautil.us
Claude Shannon, the Las Vegas Shark (2017)
http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-vegas-cheat
8 comments
I have to mention this book again. There was another thread on HN about Bill Benter who used statistics to win horse races, which almost went without mention of this book.
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling, Adam Kucharski, Basic Books, 2016.
The one thing that few people notice, or bother to say is, despite both (Shannon, Thorp, the Eudaomonics, etc) being distinguished mathematician and physicist, they didn't quite make money out of their skill. Until few yrs later, the same institution produced the famous Blackjack team, featured in the moive 21.
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling, Adam Kucharski, Basic Books, 2016.
The one thing that few people notice, or bother to say is, despite both (Shannon, Thorp, the Eudaomonics, etc) being distinguished mathematician and physicist, they didn't quite make money out of their skill. Until few yrs later, the same institution produced the famous Blackjack team, featured in the moive 21.
So sad he died of Alzheimer...
A man with such a rich professional portfolio:
"While Shannon worked in a field for which no Nobel prize is offered, his work was richly rewarded by honors including the National Medal of Science (1966) and honorary degrees from Yale (1954), Michigan (1961), Princeton (1962), Edin- burgh (1964), Pittsburgh (1964), Northwestern (1970), Oxford (1978), East Anglia (1982), Carnegie-Mellon (1984), Tufts (1987), and the University of Pennsylvania (1991). He was also the first recipient of the Harvey Prize (1972), the Kyoto Prize (1985), and the Shannon Award (1973). The last of these awards, named in his honor, is given by the Information Theory Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and remains the highest possible honor in the community of researchers dedicated to the field that he invented. His Collected Papers, published in 1993, contains 127 publications on topics ranging from communications to computing, and juggling to “mind-reading” machines."
A man with such a rich professional portfolio:
"While Shannon worked in a field for which no Nobel prize is offered, his work was richly rewarded by honors including the National Medal of Science (1966) and honorary degrees from Yale (1954), Michigan (1961), Princeton (1962), Edin- burgh (1964), Pittsburgh (1964), Northwestern (1970), Oxford (1978), East Anglia (1982), Carnegie-Mellon (1984), Tufts (1987), and the University of Pennsylvania (1991). He was also the first recipient of the Harvey Prize (1972), the Kyoto Prize (1985), and the Shannon Award (1973). The last of these awards, named in his honor, is given by the Information Theory Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and remains the highest possible honor in the community of researchers dedicated to the field that he invented. His Collected Papers, published in 1993, contains 127 publications on topics ranging from communications to computing, and juggling to “mind-reading” machines."
Some UCLA physicists did the same 2 decades later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie
Correction: UCSC (UC Santa Cruz).
While we're throwing out book recommendations, I'll mention one by William Poundstone, who's quoted in the article.
Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (2006)
If you want more background on Thorpe, or Shannon, or a layman's view of gambling and information theory, it's a fun read.
Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street (2006)
If you want more background on Thorpe, or Shannon, or a layman's view of gambling and information theory, it's a fun read.
A lot of this story was told in "The Quants" by Scott Patterson: https://www.amazon.com/Quants-Whizzes-Conquered-Street-Destr...
Ed Thorp strikes again.
Ed Thorp is still alive and has written some interesting biographies. Check out A Man for All Markets if you are interested. The Physics of Wall Street is also a good overview of quantitative financial analysis.