The Drunkard's Walk

Examines the law of the Drunkard's Walk in relation to everyday human life, the way in which we are all continually pushed this way and that by a variety of random events that, together with our reactions to them, account for much of our particular path in life.

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In 1905 Albert Einstein published a shocking explanation of Brownian Motion, the random movement of particles, likening it to the kind you would observe watching a drunkard stumbling down the road. The Drunkard’s Walk became a powerful tool in understanding the purely random – that, which by definition, has no specific pattern.

In his new book, Leonard Mlodinow examines the law of the Drunkard’s Walk in relation to everyday human life, the way in which we are all continually pushed this way and that by a variety of random events that, together with our reactions to them, account for much of our particular path in life.

Mlodinow reveals the reasons behind behind traffic jams, the spread of rumours on the internet, the length of time you can expect a wad of money to last in Las Vegas, why you have to stir coffee and the way the scent of a perfume spreads through a room, to name but a few. This engaging read reveals the nature of random processes in daily life, thereby altogether altering the way we perceive the events that happen around us.