1 00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:24,650 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello everyone, Happy New Year. The Cautionary Tales team 2 00:00:24,730 --> 00:00:28,530 Speaker 1: is busy putting together a set of brand new cautionary 3 00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:32,450 Speaker 1: tales for the year ahead. Happiness Cults, a race around 4 00:00:32,450 --> 00:00:35,410 Speaker 1: the world, and some lessons from the front lines of 5 00:00:35,490 --> 00:00:39,770 Speaker 1: finding love and much more, all on its way. In 6 00:00:39,810 --> 00:00:43,050 Speaker 1: the meantime, don't forget We've got a Cautionary Club over 7 00:00:43,090 --> 00:00:46,370 Speaker 1: on Patreon, where you can find loads of bonus content, 8 00:00:46,570 --> 00:00:49,570 Speaker 1: extra cautionary tales, interviews with me and the team, and 9 00:00:49,770 --> 00:00:54,290 Speaker 1: an exclusive newsletter. Now, while you're setting your sights on 10 00:00:54,410 --> 00:00:58,330 Speaker 1: what twenty twenty six could look like, here's a cautionary 11 00:00:58,370 --> 00:01:06,810 Speaker 1: tale from the archives which might help enjoy. It would 12 00:01:06,850 --> 00:01:09,170 Speaker 1: be hard to think of a better example of a 13 00:01:09,290 --> 00:01:15,090 Speaker 1: game of chance than Roulette. Beneath the romantic French terminology 14 00:01:15,250 --> 00:01:18,130 Speaker 1: and the myriad rules of etiquette, each spin of the 15 00:01:18,170 --> 00:01:22,890 Speaker 1: roulette wheel is utterly random. The casino's advantage is small 16 00:01:23,530 --> 00:01:29,170 Speaker 1: that it cannot be overcome. The game is remorseless over 17 00:01:29,210 --> 00:01:32,530 Speaker 1: the long haul. The only way to win is not 18 00:01:32,650 --> 00:01:37,810 Speaker 1: to play, or is it. One day in August nineteen 19 00:01:37,890 --> 00:01:41,650 Speaker 1: sixty one, Claude and Betty Shannon stroll up to a 20 00:01:41,730 --> 00:01:45,330 Speaker 1: roulette table in Las Vegas, pretending not to know their companions, 21 00:01:45,890 --> 00:01:49,610 Speaker 1: Ed and Vivian Thorpe. Claude and the ladies are nervous, 22 00:01:50,010 --> 00:01:54,250 Speaker 1: but they don't show it. Ed Thorpe isn't nervous, he's excited. 23 00:01:54,930 --> 00:01:57,530 Speaker 1: He's still in his twenties, but he's an old hand 24 00:01:57,530 --> 00:02:01,930 Speaker 1: and the casinos Claude. Shannon stands right by the wheel. 25 00:02:02,530 --> 00:02:05,490 Speaker 1: He's forty five years old, slim and good looking, with 26 00:02:05,610 --> 00:02:10,490 Speaker 1: fine cheekbones and dark eyebrows. He's directing the attention of 27 00:02:10,530 --> 00:02:13,810 Speaker 1: the floor manager by scribbling down numbers. He looks like 28 00:02:13,850 --> 00:02:17,810 Speaker 1: he's got some crazy system that will inevitably bankrupt him. 29 00:02:18,210 --> 00:02:20,610 Speaker 1: Thorpe is at the other end of the table, far 30 00:02:20,650 --> 00:02:24,050 Speaker 1: from the wheel and far from Shannon. He has dark hair, 31 00:02:24,290 --> 00:02:28,570 Speaker 1: a round face, and a smile. He's having fun placing 32 00:02:28,570 --> 00:02:31,010 Speaker 1: his bets with the confidence of a man who knows 33 00:02:31,050 --> 00:02:35,970 Speaker 1: the unbeatable game is about to be beaten. This is 34 00:02:36,010 --> 00:02:39,170 Speaker 1: a defining moment in a project that has been quietly 35 00:02:39,250 --> 00:02:42,850 Speaker 1: ticking over for a year. When it began, Thorpe and 36 00:02:42,930 --> 00:02:46,770 Speaker 1: Shannon didn't know each other. Edward O. Thorpe was a 37 00:02:46,850 --> 00:02:52,330 Speaker 1: junior mathematics instructor at MIT. Claude, Shannon was the greatest 38 00:02:52,330 --> 00:02:56,410 Speaker 1: computer scientist in the world. Ed Thorpe had a plan 39 00:02:56,530 --> 00:03:01,330 Speaker 1: to beat Roulette, and he needed Shannon to help him. 40 00:03:01,570 --> 00:03:05,170 Speaker 1: Systems to beat Roulette are like blueprints for perpetual motion 41 00:03:05,330 --> 00:03:10,010 Speaker 1: machines or formulas to turn lead into gold. Third, the 42 00:03:10,010 --> 00:03:14,570 Speaker 1: pseudo scientific obsessions of Cranks and Claude. Shannon's secretary had 43 00:03:14,610 --> 00:03:18,690 Speaker 1: already warned Thorpe that Professor Shannon doesn't spend time on 44 00:03:18,770 --> 00:03:22,530 Speaker 1: topics or people that don't interest him. Shannon was a 45 00:03:22,650 --> 00:03:26,530 Speaker 1: legendary figure. People in his field talked about Shannon the 46 00:03:26,570 --> 00:03:30,930 Speaker 1: way physicists talk about Albert Einstein. What Ed Thorpe was 47 00:03:30,970 --> 00:03:35,170 Speaker 1: doing was much like buttonholing Einstein and saying, Hey, Albert, 48 00:03:35,330 --> 00:03:37,650 Speaker 1: I've got a surefire scheme for beating the bookies at 49 00:03:37,690 --> 00:03:43,290 Speaker 1: the racetrack. An unknown young mathematician a patently futile goal. 50 00:03:43,810 --> 00:03:50,050 Speaker 1: Claude Shannon, the computing legend, didn't hesitate. Take a seat. 51 00:03:50,490 --> 00:03:53,370 Speaker 1: He said to Ed Thorpe, we have a lot to 52 00:03:53,450 --> 00:04:24,450 Speaker 1: talk about. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. Repeat. 53 00:04:24,490 --> 00:04:26,730 Speaker 2: Please please send floor for the present. 54 00:04:27,010 --> 00:04:29,890 Speaker 1: How do you receive send flower? Please see if you 55 00:04:29,930 --> 00:04:30,530 Speaker 1: can read this? 56 00:04:30,930 --> 00:04:34,010 Speaker 2: Can you read this, Yes, how are signals? 57 00:04:34,410 --> 00:04:38,210 Speaker 1: Do you receive? Please send something? Please send thees and bees? 58 00:04:38,530 --> 00:04:39,570 Speaker 3: How are signals? 59 00:04:40,690 --> 00:04:45,930 Speaker 1: Those messages from eighteen fifty eight represent a full day 60 00:04:46,290 --> 00:04:50,410 Speaker 1: of attempted conversation via Morse code. Who are cable? Lying 61 00:04:50,570 --> 00:04:54,370 Speaker 1: three miles under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The 62 00:04:54,450 --> 00:04:58,850 Speaker 1: cable had been enormously expensive, and as you might guess, 63 00:04:59,370 --> 00:05:04,050 Speaker 1: it wasn't really working. In an attempt to boost the signal, 64 00:05:04,290 --> 00:05:08,570 Speaker 1: the project's engineer, a man called Wildman white House, cranked 65 00:05:08,650 --> 00:05:14,370 Speaker 1: up the vault. The cable melted. It had survived only 66 00:05:14,490 --> 00:05:19,690 Speaker 1: twenty eight days. Over the years, telegraph engineers figured out 67 00:05:19,810 --> 00:05:22,410 Speaker 1: how to work around the problem of noise on the line. 68 00:05:22,570 --> 00:05:26,250 Speaker 1: They built stronger cables with better insulation and more sensitive 69 00:05:26,290 --> 00:05:30,250 Speaker 1: detectures at the far end. But nobody fully solved the 70 00:05:30,250 --> 00:05:34,850 Speaker 1: problem of noise. Nobody even fully understood it. Not until 71 00:05:35,290 --> 00:05:41,010 Speaker 1: nearly a century later, along came Clawed Shannon. Shannon's career 72 00:05:41,170 --> 00:05:44,930 Speaker 1: was defined by two thunderbolts of insight. When he was 73 00:05:44,970 --> 00:05:48,970 Speaker 1: twenty one in nineteen thirty eight, his master's thesis showed 74 00:05:49,010 --> 00:05:52,850 Speaker 1: that any logical statement could be evaluated by a machine, 75 00:05:53,290 --> 00:05:57,210 Speaker 1: with true or false being represented by switches being open 76 00:05:57,490 --> 00:06:01,490 Speaker 1: or closed those dots and dashes of Morse code, which 77 00:06:01,530 --> 00:06:04,770 Speaker 1: as to hint at the possibilities. Armed only with open 78 00:06:04,970 --> 00:06:08,810 Speaker 1: or closed on or off dot or dash zero or 79 00:06:08,850 --> 00:06:15,650 Speaker 1: war machines could perform any operation in mathematics or logic, and, 80 00:06:15,770 --> 00:06:19,610 Speaker 1: rather than merely proving the point in abstract, Shannon, who 81 00:06:19,690 --> 00:06:22,970 Speaker 1: was barely old enough to buy a beer, showed electrical 82 00:06:23,010 --> 00:06:28,290 Speaker 1: engineers how to efficiently build a logic machine. Claude Shannon 83 00:06:28,410 --> 00:06:33,010 Speaker 1: had bridged the vast gap between electrical wiring diagrams and 84 00:06:33,210 --> 00:06:41,650 Speaker 1: thought itself unlocking the age of the digital computer. Shannon's 85 00:06:41,690 --> 00:06:44,650 Speaker 1: second Thunderbolt was published in nineteen forty eight, when he 86 00:06:44,730 --> 00:06:49,810 Speaker 1: was working at Bell Labs alongside several future Nobel Prize winners, 87 00:06:49,890 --> 00:06:53,890 Speaker 1: including the team that invented the transistor. Shannon returned to 88 00:06:53,930 --> 00:06:59,890 Speaker 1: the deep problem underlying the Transatlantic cable fiasco. He created 89 00:06:59,970 --> 00:07:05,210 Speaker 1: a unified mathematical theory of transmitting information. Some of that 90 00:07:05,290 --> 00:07:08,890 Speaker 1: theory seems obvious from the viewpoint of the twenty first century. 91 00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:12,810 Speaker 1: We now take it for granted that information bits and 92 00:07:12,850 --> 00:07:17,330 Speaker 1: bytes and gigabytes might represent anything a computer game or 93 00:07:17,330 --> 00:07:22,770 Speaker 1: a spreadsheet, or music or pornography. But that idea started 94 00:07:23,090 --> 00:07:28,290 Speaker 1: with Shannon. Before him, researchers only dimly grasped the distinction 95 00:07:28,410 --> 00:07:31,290 Speaker 1: between the meaning of a message and the quantity of 96 00:07:31,330 --> 00:07:36,490 Speaker 1: information it contained. The idea of compressing a file so 97 00:07:36,530 --> 00:07:39,970 Speaker 1: that it took up less space was Shannon's, and so 98 00:07:40,130 --> 00:07:43,690 Speaker 1: too was the utterly radical idea that any amount of 99 00:07:43,730 --> 00:07:47,250 Speaker 1: noise on a line could be overcome. We didn't do 100 00:07:47,370 --> 00:07:50,690 Speaker 1: that by cranking up the voltage and melting the undersea cable, 101 00:07:51,050 --> 00:07:53,410 Speaker 1: nor did you need to build a better listening device 102 00:07:53,530 --> 00:07:57,570 Speaker 1: or a thicker cable. No matter how much distortion there was, 103 00:07:58,530 --> 00:08:02,330 Speaker 1: you could convey any message if you had enough patience. 104 00:08:03,050 --> 00:08:06,370 Speaker 1: All you had to do was add redundancy to the data. 105 00:08:06,610 --> 00:08:10,330 Speaker 1: It's the inverse of compressing a file. You add extra 106 00:08:10,410 --> 00:08:13,330 Speaker 1: data to make the message more likely to be recoverable. 107 00:08:13,770 --> 00:08:18,730 Speaker 1: Even in the presence of interference. That idea was unthinkable, 108 00:08:19,250 --> 00:08:22,130 Speaker 1: right up to the point that Claude Shannon proved how 109 00:08:22,130 --> 00:08:29,490 Speaker 1: to do it. This new theory of information was revolutionary 110 00:08:29,850 --> 00:08:32,610 Speaker 1: and so elegant and general that it could be applied 111 00:08:32,650 --> 00:08:36,250 Speaker 1: to anything from the Internet to genetic information in DNA, 112 00:08:36,850 --> 00:08:39,530 Speaker 1: even though the Internet did not then exist, and the 113 00:08:39,570 --> 00:08:42,970 Speaker 1: double helix structure of DNA had not yet been discovered. 114 00:08:43,770 --> 00:08:47,330 Speaker 1: Shannon wasn't merely ahead of his time. He was the 115 00:08:47,410 --> 00:08:50,410 Speaker 1: one who had wound the clock and set it running. 116 00:08:51,410 --> 00:08:56,410 Speaker 1: All this and he'd barely turned thirty. So what did 117 00:08:56,450 --> 00:09:00,650 Speaker 1: Shannon do for an encore? Is a description from his biographers, 118 00:09:01,010 --> 00:09:05,930 Speaker 1: Jimmy Sony and Rob Goodman of Shannon's work ethic. Shannon 119 00:09:06,010 --> 00:09:09,250 Speaker 1: arrived late, if at all, and often spend the day 120 00:09:09,290 --> 00:09:12,370 Speaker 1: absorbed in games of chess and hex in the common areas. 121 00:09:12,970 --> 00:09:15,810 Speaker 1: When not besting his colleagues at board games, he would 122 00:09:15,810 --> 00:09:20,170 Speaker 1: be found piloting a unicycle through Bell Labs's narrow passageways, 123 00:09:20,530 --> 00:09:24,330 Speaker 1: occasionally while juggling. Sometimes he would pogo stick his way 124 00:09:24,330 --> 00:09:27,530 Speaker 1: around the Bell Labs campus, much to the consternation we 125 00:09:27,610 --> 00:09:32,530 Speaker 1: imagine of the people who signed his paychecks. Shannon wasn't 126 00:09:32,530 --> 00:09:36,770 Speaker 1: goofing off completely. He often worked hard, but the projects 127 00:09:36,770 --> 00:09:40,850 Speaker 1: he worked on seemed whimsical. For example, he spent many 128 00:09:40,890 --> 00:09:44,930 Speaker 1: hours at home playing with a colossal erector set. He 129 00:09:44,970 --> 00:09:48,090 Speaker 1: built a robot mouse that could explore a maze and, 130 00:09:48,290 --> 00:09:51,130 Speaker 1: by trial and error, on the first attempt, learn how 131 00:09:51,170 --> 00:09:54,770 Speaker 1: to reach its target flawlessly. On the second run, the 132 00:09:54,890 --> 00:09:58,050 Speaker 1: robot mouse was clever and thought provoking, and it might 133 00:09:58,090 --> 00:10:03,250 Speaker 1: have represented real progress towards artificial intelligence if Shannon had 134 00:10:03,290 --> 00:10:08,450 Speaker 1: persisted with it. But he didn't. Shannon built perhaps the 135 00:10:08,610 --> 00:10:13,170 Speaker 1: first chess playing computer, albeit one that could play only 136 00:10:13,210 --> 00:10:16,850 Speaker 1: a radically simplified setup the end game with six pieces. 137 00:10:17,610 --> 00:10:21,250 Speaker 1: He published a theoretical paper on computer chess. It could 138 00:10:21,250 --> 00:10:24,890 Speaker 1: have been the start of something, but again he lost interest. 139 00:10:26,210 --> 00:10:29,090 Speaker 1: It seemed a shame. If anyone could make progress with 140 00:10:29,130 --> 00:10:34,090 Speaker 1: computer chess, surely it was Shannon. He was good. Shannon 141 00:10:34,170 --> 00:10:37,210 Speaker 1: once traveled to Moscow and played chess with three time 142 00:10:37,290 --> 00:10:42,450 Speaker 1: world champion Mikhail Botvinick, and he made Botvinick sweat. When 143 00:10:42,450 --> 00:10:45,570 Speaker 1: it wasn't chess, it was juggling. Shannon tried to figure 144 00:10:45,570 --> 00:10:48,370 Speaker 1: out how to juggle upside down by hanging from the 145 00:10:48,410 --> 00:10:51,410 Speaker 1: ceiling and bouncing the balls off the floor. He built 146 00:10:51,490 --> 00:10:55,370 Speaker 1: juggling robots too, and a variety of machines designed to 147 00:10:55,410 --> 00:10:59,610 Speaker 1: play abstract games, such as Hex and a Rubik's Cube 148 00:10:59,610 --> 00:11:04,170 Speaker 1: solving robot, and the Juggleometer, and a flame throwing trumpet 149 00:11:04,770 --> 00:11:09,290 Speaker 1: and the Ultimate Machine. The Ultimate Machine is a box 150 00:11:09,330 --> 00:11:12,130 Speaker 1: with a switch and a trapdoor, and you flick the 151 00:11:12,170 --> 00:11:15,730 Speaker 1: switch to turn it on. A robot finger pops out 152 00:11:15,730 --> 00:11:18,610 Speaker 1: of the trapdoor and flips the switch back again to 153 00:11:18,690 --> 00:11:23,770 Speaker 1: turn itself off. Shannon made giant styrofoam shoes so he 154 00:11:23,770 --> 00:11:27,410 Speaker 1: could walk on water at a nearby lake. After Shannon 155 00:11:27,530 --> 00:11:30,810 Speaker 1: learned to juggle, ride a unicycle and walk a tightrope, 156 00:11:31,290 --> 00:11:34,770 Speaker 1: he formulated the aim of juggling on a unicycle on 157 00:11:34,890 --> 00:11:38,850 Speaker 1: a tightrope Alas he never got further than two out 158 00:11:38,850 --> 00:11:47,250 Speaker 1: of three, Claude Shannon's boss, Henry Pollock, said, Shannon has 159 00:11:47,370 --> 00:11:51,650 Speaker 1: earned the right to be non productive, and of course 160 00:11:51,690 --> 00:11:57,690 Speaker 1: he had. But come on, you're a genius, Claude. You're 161 00:11:57,770 --> 00:12:01,370 Speaker 1: thirty three years old, You're the Einstein of computer science, 162 00:12:01,810 --> 00:12:07,170 Speaker 1: and you're unicycling, poe going and playing board games. Shannon 163 00:12:07,610 --> 00:12:12,250 Speaker 1: never again published anything like his theory of information. He 164 00:12:12,370 --> 00:12:15,970 Speaker 1: never even came close. Once he promised the editor of 165 00:12:16,050 --> 00:12:20,650 Speaker 1: Scientific American an article on the physics of juggling. If 166 00:12:20,650 --> 00:12:24,130 Speaker 1: that didn't seem trivial enough, he followed it up with 167 00:12:24,210 --> 00:12:28,490 Speaker 1: an unapologetic letter. You probably think I've been frittering, I say, 168 00:12:28,530 --> 00:12:31,530 Speaker 1: frittering away my time while my juggling paper is languishing 169 00:12:31,530 --> 00:12:34,370 Speaker 1: on the shelf. This is only half true. I have 170 00:12:34,490 --> 00:12:37,770 Speaker 1: come to two conclusions recently. One, I am a better 171 00:12:37,810 --> 00:12:42,210 Speaker 1: poet than scientist. Two scientific American should have a poetry 172 00:12:42,290 --> 00:12:47,970 Speaker 1: column instead of his juggling research. Shannon enclosed a seventy 173 00:12:48,050 --> 00:12:52,690 Speaker 1: line poem about Rubik's Cubes, to be sung to the 174 00:12:52,770 --> 00:12:58,850 Speaker 1: tune of Tarara Bundier. He added, I'm still working on 175 00:12:58,890 --> 00:13:05,010 Speaker 1: the juggling paper. Shannon never finished it. Not only was 176 00:13:05,050 --> 00:13:09,450 Speaker 1: he not producing thunderbolts, he wasn't even producing a study ofuggling. 177 00:13:10,570 --> 00:13:14,210 Speaker 1: Perhaps we should not be surprised that Claude Shannon was 178 00:13:14,250 --> 00:13:18,290 Speaker 1: happy to put aside serious research when the young mathematician 179 00:13:18,530 --> 00:13:21,610 Speaker 1: Ed Thorpe approached him for help in hacking the roulette 180 00:13:21,690 --> 00:13:28,890 Speaker 1: table in Vegas. Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. 181 00:13:36,810 --> 00:13:39,570 Speaker 1: If we know anything, we know we're supposed to stick 182 00:13:39,650 --> 00:13:44,330 Speaker 1: to a task. Psychologists have developed some attractive ideas about 183 00:13:44,370 --> 00:13:49,970 Speaker 1: how success depends on practice and determination. There's Angela Duckworth 184 00:13:50,130 --> 00:13:54,690 Speaker 1: who's popularized the idea of grit, Carol Dwex's research on 185 00:13:54,930 --> 00:13:59,210 Speaker 1: the growth mindset and the late and as Ericsson, the 186 00:13:59,250 --> 00:14:02,530 Speaker 1: source of the ten thousand hour rule made famous by 187 00:14:02,570 --> 00:14:07,010 Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell. There are subtleties to each of these research programs, 188 00:14:07,290 --> 00:14:10,170 Speaker 1: but the versions that have broken into pop culture are 189 00:14:10,210 --> 00:14:12,890 Speaker 1: simple enough, like some motivational poster. 190 00:14:14,050 --> 00:14:17,450 Speaker 3: Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. 191 00:14:18,330 --> 00:14:22,410 Speaker 3: Talent will not. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful people 192 00:14:22,450 --> 00:14:28,010 Speaker 3: with talent. Genius will not unrewarded genius is almost a proverb, 193 00:14:28,930 --> 00:14:33,330 Speaker 3: the slogan press iron has solved and always will solve 194 00:14:33,410 --> 00:14:34,970 Speaker 3: the problems of the human race. 195 00:14:36,330 --> 00:14:41,090 Speaker 1: Isn't that great? It's often attributed to President Calvin Coolidge, 196 00:14:41,130 --> 00:14:45,450 Speaker 1: but it's older than that. Claude Shannon, however, seems not 197 00:14:45,530 --> 00:14:49,570 Speaker 1: to have gotten the message. He achieved so much, but 198 00:14:49,650 --> 00:14:52,330 Speaker 1: if it's stuck to a task, couldn't he have achieved 199 00:14:52,370 --> 00:14:57,050 Speaker 1: so much more? Instead, he was playing with flame throwing trumpets, 200 00:14:57,130 --> 00:15:01,530 Speaker 1: juggling robots, and silly poems, oh, and the impossible task 201 00:15:01,570 --> 00:15:08,130 Speaker 1: of beating the casino at roulette. For a junior academic 202 00:15:08,690 --> 00:15:12,330 Speaker 1: ed thought, Thorpe spent a surprising amount of time in casinos. 203 00:15:13,170 --> 00:15:16,810 Speaker 1: Using some ferocious mathematics and the best computers he could 204 00:15:16,850 --> 00:15:19,850 Speaker 1: access at MIT, Thorpe had figured out that it was 205 00:15:19,930 --> 00:15:24,050 Speaker 1: possible to beat the dealer at the casino staple blackjack 206 00:15:24,610 --> 00:15:26,970 Speaker 1: by keeping track of the cards that had been played 207 00:15:27,570 --> 00:15:31,130 Speaker 1: in placing bets when the deck was offering favorable odds. 208 00:15:31,890 --> 00:15:35,530 Speaker 1: Card counting is a familiar idea these days. It all 209 00:15:35,650 --> 00:15:41,050 Speaker 1: started with Ed Thorpe. Thorpe's ideas were sophisticated enough to 210 00:15:41,050 --> 00:15:44,250 Speaker 1: be worth publishing as an academic paper, which he did, 211 00:15:45,130 --> 00:15:48,650 Speaker 1: but he wasn't content with that. He wanted to beat 212 00:15:48,730 --> 00:15:53,250 Speaker 1: the casino too. To do that, Thorpe had to learn 213 00:15:53,290 --> 00:15:58,170 Speaker 1: to spot crooked dealing, where a disguise count cards unobtrusively 214 00:15:58,250 --> 00:16:01,490 Speaker 1: late into the night, and above all, make sure he 215 00:16:01,530 --> 00:16:06,970 Speaker 1: didn't get killed. That was no idle worry. One day, 216 00:16:07,130 --> 00:16:10,490 Speaker 1: Thorpe made a little too much money and the casino 217 00:16:10,690 --> 00:16:14,890 Speaker 1: spiked his coffee with something mysterious that blurred his vision 218 00:16:14,930 --> 00:16:18,610 Speaker 1: for hours. He came back the next day and the 219 00:16:18,650 --> 00:16:23,850 Speaker 1: casino tried it again, but Thorpe wasn't scared. His idea 220 00:16:23,890 --> 00:16:27,410 Speaker 1: to beat roulette was the boldest of all. He didn't 221 00:16:27,450 --> 00:16:30,530 Speaker 1: have in mind a clever mathematical system. There are loads 222 00:16:30,570 --> 00:16:34,330 Speaker 1: of them, and he knew that none of them work. Instead, 223 00:16:34,810 --> 00:16:37,810 Speaker 1: he planned to build a computer that could predict where 224 00:16:37,850 --> 00:16:41,410 Speaker 1: the ball would land. That would be hard even today, 225 00:16:42,050 --> 00:16:45,130 Speaker 1: but at a time when computers were the size of pianos. 226 00:16:45,890 --> 00:16:49,090 Speaker 1: This computer needed to be one that you could conceal 227 00:16:49,290 --> 00:16:55,570 Speaker 1: inside your clothes, the world's first wearable computer, decades before 228 00:16:55,610 --> 00:17:01,170 Speaker 1: the fitbit, Google Glass or the Apple Watch. Thorpe had 229 00:17:01,210 --> 00:17:04,010 Speaker 1: done some experiments on the timing of a roulette wheel 230 00:17:04,050 --> 00:17:07,330 Speaker 1: with his wife, Vivian, a woman who was both intelligent 231 00:17:07,650 --> 00:17:10,730 Speaker 1: and indulgent, as you'd need to be if you were 232 00:17:10,770 --> 00:17:14,530 Speaker 1: marriage to Ed Thorpe. But to crack the problem he 233 00:17:14,610 --> 00:17:18,330 Speaker 1: needed to team up with perhaps the best gadgeteer in 234 00:17:18,410 --> 00:17:23,770 Speaker 1: the world, Claude Shannon. Thorpe spent twenty hours a week 235 00:17:23,810 --> 00:17:26,210 Speaker 1: at Shannon's house. He was in heaven. 236 00:17:26,890 --> 00:17:35,970 Speaker 2: The basement was a gadgeteer's paradise, molders, transistors, switches, pulleys, gears, condensers, transformers. 237 00:17:36,650 --> 00:17:40,210 Speaker 2: I was now happily working with the ultimate gadgeteer. 238 00:17:41,130 --> 00:17:43,650 Speaker 1: Shannon and Thorpe were able to time the spinning of 239 00:17:43,650 --> 00:17:46,330 Speaker 1: the ball around an upper loop and the contrary motion 240 00:17:46,370 --> 00:17:48,970 Speaker 1: of the wheel itself. With practice, they were able to 241 00:17:49,010 --> 00:17:52,050 Speaker 1: start a clock within one hundredth of a second and 242 00:17:52,090 --> 00:17:55,330 Speaker 1: then stop the clock after ten revolutions. That gave them 243 00:17:55,370 --> 00:17:57,890 Speaker 1: both the speed and the position of the ball. Relative 244 00:17:57,930 --> 00:18:00,650 Speaker 1: to the wheel, and Newtonian physics could do the rest. 245 00:18:02,450 --> 00:18:06,090 Speaker 1: The result of months of experimentation taught them that using 246 00:18:06,130 --> 00:18:08,650 Speaker 1: their computer to compute the path of the ball, they 247 00:18:08,650 --> 00:18:11,210 Speaker 1: could put that it would fall into one of five 248 00:18:11,290 --> 00:18:15,250 Speaker 1: numbers just over one eighth of the wheel and expect 249 00:18:15,330 --> 00:18:18,330 Speaker 1: to be right twenty percent of the time. It seems 250 00:18:18,370 --> 00:18:23,250 Speaker 1: a modest advantage, but the potential profits were enormous. All 251 00:18:23,290 --> 00:18:25,730 Speaker 1: they had to do was to figure out how to 252 00:18:25,810 --> 00:18:29,850 Speaker 1: miniaturize that computer, making it small enough to slip into 253 00:18:29,890 --> 00:18:33,890 Speaker 1: a pocket and carry into the casino undetected. It was 254 00:18:34,010 --> 00:18:38,850 Speaker 1: an astonishingly audacious project and a huge effort. For the 255 00:18:38,890 --> 00:18:42,650 Speaker 1: final three weeks, Thorpe was effectively living at Shannon's house, 256 00:18:43,290 --> 00:18:47,010 Speaker 1: but by August nineteen sixty one, the device was ready 257 00:18:47,850 --> 00:18:51,770 Speaker 1: with their accomplices, Vivian Thorpe and Claude's wife, the mathematician 258 00:18:51,810 --> 00:18:55,970 Speaker 1: Betty Shannon. The two gadgeteers then took it to the casinos. 259 00:18:56,330 --> 00:19:04,010 Speaker 1: The Einstein of computer science was going to Las Vegas. 260 00:19:05,250 --> 00:19:08,730 Speaker 1: Looking at Claude Shannon's career from age thirty three onwards, 261 00:19:09,170 --> 00:19:11,970 Speaker 1: it's hard to escape the conclusion that he might have 262 00:19:12,010 --> 00:19:15,490 Speaker 1: achieved more, much more, if not for his habit of 263 00:19:15,690 --> 00:19:19,530 Speaker 1: flitting between whimsical projects and typically setting them aside before 264 00:19:19,570 --> 00:19:23,610 Speaker 1: they were finished. But some very smart people would disagree. 265 00:19:24,050 --> 00:19:28,090 Speaker 1: Vanevar Bush arguably knew more than anyone about the way 266 00:19:28,210 --> 00:19:32,650 Speaker 1: scientific progress occurred. He guided science policy for the United 267 00:19:32,690 --> 00:19:36,490 Speaker 1: States during the Second World War, coordinating the efforts of 268 00:19:36,730 --> 00:19:41,650 Speaker 1: six thousand researchers. Bush said that great scientists should range 269 00:19:41,690 --> 00:19:45,250 Speaker 1: widely and keep changing things up. In a speech to 270 00:19:45,290 --> 00:19:50,930 Speaker 1: professors at MIT, Bush advocated breadth rather than depth. It 271 00:19:51,050 --> 00:19:55,330 Speaker 1: is unfortunate when a brilliant and creative mind insists upon 272 00:19:55,370 --> 00:19:59,690 Speaker 1: living in a modern monastic cell. Bush's idea was later 273 00:19:59,730 --> 00:20:06,450 Speaker 1: backed up by scientific investigation of scientists themselves. In nineteen 274 00:20:06,490 --> 00:20:10,050 Speaker 1: fifty eight, a remarkable study was launched by a young 275 00:20:10,130 --> 00:20:14,850 Speaker 1: psychologist named Bernice Agison. The study followed a group of 276 00:20:14,890 --> 00:20:19,850 Speaker 1: promising researchers as their careers unfolded, periodically interviewing them and 277 00:20:19,930 --> 00:20:23,610 Speaker 1: continuing even after Agison herself died in nineteen eighty five. 278 00:20:24,450 --> 00:20:29,010 Speaker 1: Four of the scientists eventually won Nobel Prizes. The findings 279 00:20:29,050 --> 00:20:32,810 Speaker 1: of the Agison study support Shannon's habit of flipping from 280 00:20:32,810 --> 00:20:36,850 Speaker 1: one project to another. The scientists who'd most flourished over 281 00:20:36,890 --> 00:20:40,730 Speaker 1: the decades, had switched back and forth dozens of times. 282 00:20:41,450 --> 00:20:44,650 Speaker 1: Once you start looking for this pattern, you see it everywhere. 283 00:20:45,250 --> 00:20:48,650 Speaker 1: Isaac Newton is most famous for formulating the law of gravity, 284 00:20:49,090 --> 00:20:53,050 Speaker 1: but made huge advances in mathematics and optics. He was 285 00:20:53,050 --> 00:20:56,690 Speaker 1: the master of the Royal Mint and was fascinated by economics, 286 00:20:57,130 --> 00:21:00,370 Speaker 1: and devoted as much attention to alchemy as to anything else. 287 00:21:01,090 --> 00:21:06,090 Speaker 1: Einstein published four astonishing scientific papers on four different topics, 288 00:21:06,290 --> 00:21:10,450 Speaker 1: all in the same year nineteen oh five. Charles Darwin 289 00:21:10,570 --> 00:21:14,810 Speaker 1: worked simultaneously on the theory of evolution. The definitive two 290 00:21:14,890 --> 00:21:18,890 Speaker 1: volume work on barnacles and a book about the human infant, 291 00:21:19,290 --> 00:21:23,130 Speaker 1: began while his son William was a baby, and published 292 00:21:23,290 --> 00:21:27,730 Speaker 1: just in time for William Darwin's thirty eighth birthday. Multiple 293 00:21:27,770 --> 00:21:31,890 Speaker 1: projects aren't unusual at the highest level of science. They're 294 00:21:31,890 --> 00:21:36,090 Speaker 1: the norm. Not only that, high achieving scientists often have 295 00:21:36,250 --> 00:21:41,050 Speaker 1: time consuming side interests, pursuing photography, fine art, or music 296 00:21:41,410 --> 00:21:46,490 Speaker 1: at or near a professional level. Nobel Prize winning scientists 297 00:21:46,610 --> 00:21:50,290 Speaker 1: are substantially more likely to have serious hobbies than other 298 00:21:50,410 --> 00:21:53,650 Speaker 1: leading scientists, who in turn are more likely to have 299 00:21:53,730 --> 00:21:57,410 Speaker 1: them than the rest of us. The later part of 300 00:21:57,490 --> 00:22:02,090 Speaker 1: Shannon's career fits right into this highly diverse pattern, but 301 00:22:02,130 --> 00:22:06,290 Speaker 1: then so does the early part. Back in nineteen thirty nine, 302 00:22:06,570 --> 00:22:10,930 Speaker 1: shortly after his first thunderbolt, he wrote a note to 303 00:22:11,010 --> 00:22:16,490 Speaker 1: an academic mentor, dear doctor Bush, Yes Vanovar Bush, the 304 00:22:16,530 --> 00:22:20,330 Speaker 1: man who knew everyone who mattered in mid century American science. 305 00:22:20,810 --> 00:22:23,970 Speaker 1: Of course, he was there to support the young Claude Shannon. 306 00:22:24,890 --> 00:22:29,370 Speaker 1: Dear doctor Bush, I've been working on three different ideas simultaneously, 307 00:22:29,410 --> 00:22:32,530 Speaker 1: and strangely enough, it seems a more productive method than 308 00:22:32,610 --> 00:22:36,570 Speaker 1: sticking to one problem. When Shannon wrote to Vanovar Bush, 309 00:22:36,970 --> 00:22:40,450 Speaker 1: he wasn't working on engineering or logic. He was working 310 00:22:40,530 --> 00:22:44,570 Speaker 1: on genetics. He knew nothing about the subject, but swiftly 311 00:22:44,610 --> 00:22:48,410 Speaker 1: produced a completely new kind of algebra to describe and 312 00:22:48,650 --> 00:22:53,490 Speaker 1: analyze genetic inheritance. The work was intriguing and wholly original, 313 00:22:53,770 --> 00:22:57,730 Speaker 1: but needed developing. Did Shannon develop it He did not. 314 00:22:58,690 --> 00:23:02,370 Speaker 1: In fact, he never even bothered publishing it. Neither did 315 00:23:02,370 --> 00:23:06,450 Speaker 1: he ever return to genetics. Later scholars lament the loss. 316 00:23:06,730 --> 00:23:09,810 Speaker 1: His new algebra might really have advance on the field, 317 00:23:10,410 --> 00:23:13,370 Speaker 1: but sticking with genetics might also have meant he never 318 00:23:13,450 --> 00:23:19,410 Speaker 1: had his second thunderbolt on information theory. Between those two thunderbolts, 319 00:23:19,610 --> 00:23:23,010 Speaker 1: Shannon didn't just switch fields. He lit a rich and 320 00:23:23,130 --> 00:23:27,010 Speaker 1: complicated life. He married and then divorced within a year. 321 00:23:27,410 --> 00:23:30,290 Speaker 1: He moved to Manhattan to spice things up. It played 322 00:23:30,370 --> 00:23:33,810 Speaker 1: chess in Washington Square Park. It played clarinet. He loved 323 00:23:33,850 --> 00:23:37,610 Speaker 1: the jazz scene in New York. He swam, played tennis, 324 00:23:37,930 --> 00:23:40,410 Speaker 1: stayed up too late, and played his music too loud. 325 00:23:41,170 --> 00:23:43,770 Speaker 1: All this was happening when Shannon was at the peak 326 00:23:43,930 --> 00:23:48,010 Speaker 1: of his intellectual powers. Shannon didn't just hit thirty five 327 00:23:48,330 --> 00:23:52,450 Speaker 1: then abandoned serious thinking in favor of playing around. Shannon 328 00:23:53,010 --> 00:23:57,370 Speaker 1: was playing around all along. Maybe Shannon's love of frittering, 329 00:23:57,490 --> 00:24:02,090 Speaker 1: I say, frittering away his time on juggling or unicycling, 330 00:24:02,330 --> 00:24:05,850 Speaker 1: or music or chess. Maybe that's not the reason he 331 00:24:05,930 --> 00:24:10,810 Speaker 1: produced only two truly brilliant ideas. Maybe it's the reason 332 00:24:11,010 --> 00:24:15,050 Speaker 1: he produced two truly brilliant ideas in the first place. 333 00:24:19,330 --> 00:24:28,610 Speaker 1: Cautionary tales will be back in a moment. I try 334 00:24:28,650 --> 00:24:31,050 Speaker 1: hard to answer all the people who write to me. 335 00:24:31,730 --> 00:24:35,610 Speaker 1: I get anxious knowing that the task is unfinished. Claude 336 00:24:35,610 --> 00:24:39,330 Speaker 1: Shannon didn't feel that same compulsion to clear his inbox 337 00:24:39,850 --> 00:24:44,290 Speaker 1: He often left correspondence unanswered, then eventually cleared the decks 338 00:24:44,330 --> 00:24:47,130 Speaker 1: to the use of a trash can marked letters I've 339 00:24:47,210 --> 00:24:51,570 Speaker 1: procrastinated on for too long. That might seem a trivial thing, 340 00:24:51,650 --> 00:24:55,130 Speaker 1: but I think it points to something deeper. Psychologists have 341 00:24:55,210 --> 00:25:00,490 Speaker 1: identified a tendency called completion bias. If you've ever assembled 342 00:25:00,490 --> 00:25:03,050 Speaker 1: a list of things to do, then ticked off all 343 00:25:03,090 --> 00:25:07,410 Speaker 1: the easy ones while ignoring the important stuff, you've demonstrated 344 00:25:07,450 --> 00:25:13,530 Speaker 1: completion bias. That apparently admirable tendency persistence the determination to 345 00:25:13,570 --> 00:25:17,730 Speaker 1: finish what we start well, it could be twisted and perverted. 346 00:25:18,210 --> 00:25:21,490 Speaker 1: If we feel compelled to reach the finish line, we 347 00:25:21,610 --> 00:25:25,450 Speaker 1: also feel tempted to choose a short racetrack. Is more 348 00:25:25,490 --> 00:25:28,770 Speaker 1: at stake here than making ourselves feel better by cheating 349 00:25:28,810 --> 00:25:33,170 Speaker 1: with our own to do lists. Psychologists recently studied completion 350 00:25:33,290 --> 00:25:37,170 Speaker 1: by us in a high stake setting, a hospital emergency department. 351 00:25:37,730 --> 00:25:40,970 Speaker 1: They found that the busier the emergency room becomes, the 352 00:25:41,010 --> 00:25:44,490 Speaker 1: more the doctors look for quick wins the patients who 353 00:25:44,570 --> 00:25:47,690 Speaker 1: aren't really very ill and can therefore be treated swiftly 354 00:25:48,050 --> 00:25:51,810 Speaker 1: and ticked off the list, and this behavior is counterproductive. 355 00:25:52,450 --> 00:25:56,170 Speaker 1: The more seriously ill patients wait longer, of course, and 356 00:25:56,290 --> 00:25:58,930 Speaker 1: the doctors start to slow down after working through a 357 00:25:58,970 --> 00:26:02,210 Speaker 1: lot of fairly trivial cases. I expect we all know 358 00:26:02,290 --> 00:26:05,930 Speaker 1: the feeling, but in their subconscious desire to see some 359 00:26:06,170 --> 00:26:10,690 Speaker 1: work through to completion, doctors were harming the patients who 360 00:26:10,690 --> 00:26:17,010 Speaker 1: were in greatest need. Claude Shannon's willingness to set aside 361 00:26:17,090 --> 00:26:21,210 Speaker 1: projects starts to look like a strength rather than a weakness. 362 00:26:21,770 --> 00:26:26,290 Speaker 1: Shannon certainly could focus, whether building information theory from scratch 363 00:26:26,810 --> 00:26:31,050 Speaker 1: or building a wearable computer to be Roulette. Yet Shannon 364 00:26:31,170 --> 00:26:34,210 Speaker 1: also seemed to have an inner confidence that allowed him 365 00:26:34,250 --> 00:26:37,410 Speaker 1: to declare victory at any point that suited him. If 366 00:26:37,450 --> 00:26:40,490 Speaker 1: a piece of work was not good enough to publish, fine, 367 00:26:40,770 --> 00:26:44,410 Speaker 1: he was happy to leave it unpublished. That juggling paper 368 00:26:44,450 --> 00:26:47,450 Speaker 1: is an example, but so too was his early work 369 00:26:47,490 --> 00:26:51,890 Speaker 1: on genetic algebra. One of Claude Shannon's colleagues at Bell 370 00:26:52,010 --> 00:26:56,690 Speaker 1: Labs praised him as a man of infinite courage. He 371 00:26:56,810 --> 00:27:01,810 Speaker 1: was talking about Shannon's intellectual daring, a willingness to march 372 00:27:01,970 --> 00:27:05,610 Speaker 1: into unknown territory to begin the search for solutions to 373 00:27:05,690 --> 00:27:10,490 Speaker 1: problems that seemed as unbeatable as Roulette. But perhaps Courage 374 00:27:10,530 --> 00:27:13,490 Speaker 1: is not quite the right word to describe Shannon's approach. 375 00:27:14,290 --> 00:27:20,050 Speaker 1: I prefer in soussiens Claude. Shannon just wasn't worried. He 376 00:27:20,090 --> 00:27:22,610 Speaker 1: didn't feel completion by us the way you and I 377 00:27:22,730 --> 00:27:25,810 Speaker 1: feel it. He would walk away from any project at 378 00:27:25,890 --> 00:27:29,730 Speaker 1: any time without regret. And if he was willing to 379 00:27:29,810 --> 00:27:34,050 Speaker 1: abandon a stalled project, where was the risk? And if 380 00:27:34,090 --> 00:27:38,490 Speaker 1: there was little risk, why talk about courage. Shannon didn't 381 00:27:38,530 --> 00:27:42,330 Speaker 1: need courage, He just needed the ability to move on. 382 00:27:45,090 --> 00:27:49,050 Speaker 1: In August nineteen sixty one, Claude and Betty Shannon met 383 00:27:49,250 --> 00:27:52,570 Speaker 1: Ed and Vivian Thorpe in a hotel room in Las Vegas. 384 00:27:53,330 --> 00:27:57,170 Speaker 1: Claude and Ed prepared the wearable computer system, which required 385 00:27:57,170 --> 00:28:01,370 Speaker 1: both of them to operate. Shannon controlled the computer itself, 386 00:28:01,810 --> 00:28:04,890 Speaker 1: the size of a cigarette packet, with twelve transistors in it. 387 00:28:05,730 --> 00:28:09,650 Speaker 1: He used his toes to trigger silent mercury switches hidden 388 00:28:09,690 --> 00:28:13,890 Speaker 1: in his shoes. Thorpe, whose research into blackjack had given 389 00:28:13,970 --> 00:28:17,290 Speaker 1: him plenty of experience hanging around in casinos, was the 390 00:28:17,330 --> 00:28:20,050 Speaker 1: one who would place the bets. He had a radio 391 00:28:20,090 --> 00:28:23,290 Speaker 1: receiver and an ear piece connected to a hair thin 392 00:28:23,410 --> 00:28:28,530 Speaker 1: steel wire. The ear piece played an ascending musical scale. 393 00:28:28,570 --> 00:28:31,770 Speaker 1: Shannon would use the toe switches to time a rotation 394 00:28:31,890 --> 00:28:34,530 Speaker 1: of the wheel, and then the counter rotation of the 395 00:28:34,570 --> 00:28:38,650 Speaker 1: ball from the moment it passed a reference mark. Thorpe 396 00:28:38,810 --> 00:28:42,410 Speaker 1: would hear the musical scale stop on a continuous note 397 00:28:42,850 --> 00:28:46,050 Speaker 1: at the moment that Shannon finished timing the rotation, and 398 00:28:46,090 --> 00:28:49,330 Speaker 1: the pitch of that continuous note would indicate in which 399 00:28:49,370 --> 00:28:51,930 Speaker 1: part of the wheel the ball was likely to drop. 400 00:28:52,930 --> 00:28:56,250 Speaker 1: Thorpe still had a few seconds to place bets and 401 00:28:56,330 --> 00:29:01,130 Speaker 1: collect the money. Thorpe knew from hard experience that they 402 00:29:01,170 --> 00:29:05,450 Speaker 1: had to be careful. Their device wasn't illegal, It was 403 00:29:05,770 --> 00:29:09,530 Speaker 1: far too inconceivable for that, but it wouldn't go down 404 00:29:09,570 --> 00:29:14,130 Speaker 1: well if discovered. Beating the casino required more than just 405 00:29:14,250 --> 00:29:17,970 Speaker 1: beating the game. That's why the Shannons and the Thorpes 406 00:29:18,210 --> 00:29:21,090 Speaker 1: stroll up to the table separately, pretending not to know 407 00:29:21,170 --> 00:29:25,450 Speaker 1: each other. It's why Claude Shannon's scribbling numbers down, distracting 408 00:29:25,450 --> 00:29:28,330 Speaker 1: the floor manager from what he's really doing. All the 409 00:29:28,410 --> 00:29:32,170 Speaker 1: while he's gazing intently at the wheel from under his 410 00:29:32,330 --> 00:29:38,130 Speaker 1: dark eyebrows and his toe silently pressing and releasing the 411 00:29:38,210 --> 00:29:42,930 Speaker 1: hidden control of the computer. And while Thorpe is standing 412 00:29:42,930 --> 00:29:46,130 Speaker 1: at the other end of the table, cheerfully placing his bets. 413 00:29:46,530 --> 00:29:50,330 Speaker 1: The earpiece is receiving the signals from Shannon's little computer 414 00:29:50,890 --> 00:29:54,490 Speaker 1: and giving Thorpe predictions in the form of musical tones, 415 00:29:55,210 --> 00:30:03,210 Speaker 1: and Thorpe is winning. Not everything goes smoothly. The fine 416 00:30:03,250 --> 00:30:07,010 Speaker 1: wires to Thorpe's ear piece break several times, requiring a 417 00:30:07,010 --> 00:30:10,170 Speaker 1: trip to the bathroom to fix them. At one moment, 418 00:30:10,490 --> 00:30:14,210 Speaker 1: a horrified observer sees the earpiece come loose and think 419 00:30:14,330 --> 00:30:18,090 Speaker 1: some strange insect is crawling out of Thorpe's ear. But 420 00:30:18,410 --> 00:30:24,850 Speaker 1: fundamentally the computer works perfectly. The chips are stacking up fast. 421 00:30:26,130 --> 00:30:28,610 Speaker 1: At the end of the visit to Vegas, the Shannons 422 00:30:28,650 --> 00:30:32,970 Speaker 1: and the Thorpes pondered their options ed. Thorpe was bullish. 423 00:30:33,250 --> 00:30:35,730 Speaker 1: He'd beaten the casinos before and was happy to do 424 00:30:35,810 --> 00:30:39,850 Speaker 1: it again, but Betty Claude and Vivian weren't so sure. 425 00:30:40,530 --> 00:30:44,770 Speaker 1: It had been an exhilarating day, but a nerve wracking one, 426 00:30:45,090 --> 00:30:47,970 Speaker 1: and casino's simply banned players who seemed to win too 427 00:30:48,010 --> 00:30:51,290 Speaker 1: much for any reason, so making the computer pay on 428 00:30:51,330 --> 00:30:56,850 Speaker 1: a regular basis would require constantly concealing their identities. Thorpe 429 00:30:57,130 --> 00:31:00,530 Speaker 1: was forced to admit they had a point. The computer 430 00:31:00,730 --> 00:31:04,290 Speaker 1: clearly worked, and in theory they could use it to 431 00:31:04,330 --> 00:31:08,130 Speaker 1: make millions, but was it worth the effort and the risk. 432 00:31:09,290 --> 00:31:12,250 Speaker 1: Shannon and Thorpe had had their fun, and they had 433 00:31:12,330 --> 00:31:16,450 Speaker 1: proved their point to their own satisfaction, and Claude Shannon 434 00:31:16,530 --> 00:31:20,770 Speaker 1: had other projects to play with. So after months of 435 00:31:20,850 --> 00:31:26,530 Speaker 1: hard work, the world's first wearable computer was retired undefeated, 436 00:31:27,410 --> 00:31:34,330 Speaker 1: after a single trip to Vegas. Decades later, Thorpe reflected, 437 00:31:35,530 --> 00:31:42,010 Speaker 1: I have always thought it was a good decision. When 438 00:31:42,010 --> 00:31:45,290 Speaker 1: I first thought about writing this cautionary tale, I thought 439 00:31:45,330 --> 00:31:47,850 Speaker 1: it would be a warning not to lose focus like 440 00:31:47,930 --> 00:31:52,770 Speaker 1: Shannon did. I've changed my mind now I think Shannon 441 00:31:52,850 --> 00:31:57,450 Speaker 1: and Thorpe are inspirational figures. The cautionary tale isn't a 442 00:31:57,490 --> 00:32:01,210 Speaker 1: warning to keep your focus. Instead, it's a warning not 443 00:32:01,490 --> 00:32:05,250 Speaker 1: to focus too much. Don't commit yourself so totally to 444 00:32:05,290 --> 00:32:08,370 Speaker 1: a project that you lose heart, or lose sight of 445 00:32:08,450 --> 00:32:13,890 Speaker 1: creative idea, or lose your freedom to change course. There's 446 00:32:13,890 --> 00:32:16,890 Speaker 1: one last lesson I think we can draw from Claude 447 00:32:16,930 --> 00:32:21,010 Speaker 1: Shannon's ability to move on in their Vegas hotel room 448 00:32:21,410 --> 00:32:24,490 Speaker 1: as Shannon equipped Thorpe with his earpiece and the fine 449 00:32:24,530 --> 00:32:28,410 Speaker 1: connecting wires. Shannon had cocked his head to one side 450 00:32:29,050 --> 00:32:33,210 Speaker 1: and smiled impishly. What makes you tick? It was a 451 00:32:33,290 --> 00:32:36,050 Speaker 1: joke about the fact that Thorpe was plugged into a machine, 452 00:32:36,530 --> 00:32:39,250 Speaker 1: but young Thorpe took it as a deep question from 453 00:32:39,290 --> 00:32:42,810 Speaker 1: an older and wiser man. What did make him tick? 454 00:32:43,770 --> 00:32:50,850 Speaker 1: Professional gambling, academic mathematics or something else? But then why choose? 455 00:32:51,690 --> 00:32:55,050 Speaker 1: Shannon seemed to do it all, from academia to juggling, 456 00:32:55,850 --> 00:32:59,090 Speaker 1: and so in the end would ed Thorpe. You can 457 00:32:59,130 --> 00:33:02,170 Speaker 1: find interviews with him well into his eighties, still as 458 00:33:02,210 --> 00:33:07,090 Speaker 1: sharp as anything, reminiscing about blackjack and academic mathematics and 459 00:33:07,210 --> 00:33:10,610 Speaker 1: the hundreds of millions of dollars he eventually made after 460 00:33:10,690 --> 00:33:14,170 Speaker 1: analyzing the patterns in financial markets as one of the 461 00:33:14,210 --> 00:33:19,290 Speaker 1: first quants. One of the intriguing ideas in Claude Shannon's 462 00:33:19,330 --> 00:33:23,210 Speaker 1: mathematical theory of communication is that a message can be 463 00:33:23,250 --> 00:33:28,090 Speaker 1: compressed to the precise extent that it is predictable. A 464 00:33:28,170 --> 00:33:31,130 Speaker 1: movie can be compressed because each frame tends to resemble 465 00:33:31,170 --> 00:33:36,650 Speaker 1: the previous one. A compression algorithm doesn't store the new frame. Instead, 466 00:33:37,090 --> 00:33:41,690 Speaker 1: it stores a series of difts changes from the previous frame. 467 00:33:42,250 --> 00:33:45,970 Speaker 1: Movies with lots of cuts or fast dramatic movements are 468 00:33:45,970 --> 00:33:49,530 Speaker 1: harder to compress. The same is true more or less 469 00:33:49,570 --> 00:33:52,610 Speaker 1: with the way we remember our lives. Although the brain 470 00:33:52,730 --> 00:33:56,490 Speaker 1: is not a video recorder and doesn't store difts, it 471 00:33:56,570 --> 00:34:00,050 Speaker 1: does compress memories by recalling the gist of an experience. 472 00:34:00,770 --> 00:34:02,930 Speaker 1: If I get up in the morning at the usual time, 473 00:34:03,290 --> 00:34:06,410 Speaker 1: eat my regular breakfast, walk the usual route to the station, 474 00:34:06,610 --> 00:34:09,730 Speaker 1: and catch the same trainers always to the office, my 475 00:34:09,810 --> 00:34:14,090 Speaker 1: brain doesn't trouble itself to remember much. The diffs aren't 476 00:34:14,130 --> 00:34:19,290 Speaker 1: worth bothering with. A life that's too predictable creates few memories. 477 00:34:19,850 --> 00:34:23,050 Speaker 1: That's what prisoners sometimes say about their years behind bars. 478 00:34:23,530 --> 00:34:26,930 Speaker 1: Don't remember much because it was all the same or 479 00:34:26,970 --> 00:34:30,970 Speaker 1: the pandemic lockdown For me and perhaps for you, involved 480 00:34:31,170 --> 00:34:34,050 Speaker 1: sitting in the same seat doing the same thing every day. 481 00:34:35,010 --> 00:34:41,250 Speaker 1: Life in lockdown was thin and forgettable. The opposite experience 482 00:34:41,370 --> 00:34:45,250 Speaker 1: is a vivid vacation somewhere, packed with new sights and smells, 483 00:34:45,330 --> 00:34:49,890 Speaker 1: the people, the language, the architecture, the food. These complex, 484 00:34:50,010 --> 00:34:55,250 Speaker 1: rich experiences defy compression. The diffs are too big, so 485 00:34:55,290 --> 00:34:58,090 Speaker 1: the memories are rich. Has it really only been ten 486 00:34:58,170 --> 00:35:01,530 Speaker 1: hours since I arrived you ask yourself? Feels like a week. 487 00:35:02,530 --> 00:35:05,410 Speaker 1: So if you want a full life rich with memories, 488 00:35:06,050 --> 00:35:10,930 Speaker 1: keep searching for new experiences like Shannon, don't be afraid 489 00:35:10,970 --> 00:35:16,050 Speaker 1: to declare victory and start afresh. Shannon did everything, the 490 00:35:16,130 --> 00:35:19,210 Speaker 1: jazz and the juggling and the chess, the intellectual journey 491 00:35:19,210 --> 00:35:22,730 Speaker 1: from genetics to the Rubik's cube, the joky robots and 492 00:35:22,770 --> 00:35:26,970 Speaker 1: the flame throwing trumpet, and he really did turn upside 493 00:35:26,970 --> 00:35:31,250 Speaker 1: down the way the world thought about digital information. Not once, 494 00:35:32,330 --> 00:35:46,970 Speaker 1: but twice. Isn't twice enough. The key sources for this 495 00:35:47,050 --> 00:35:51,570 Speaker 1: episode were Jimmy Sony and Rob Goodman's biography of Claude Shannon, 496 00:35:51,850 --> 00:35:56,490 Speaker 1: A Mind at Play and Edward Thorpe's autobiography A Man 497 00:35:56,570 --> 00:36:00,170 Speaker 1: for All Markets. For a full list of references, see 498 00:36:00,250 --> 00:36:07,410 Speaker 1: Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim 499 00:36:07,490 --> 00:36:11,570 Speaker 1: Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Ryan Dilly and 500 00:36:11,690 --> 00:36:15,570 Speaker 1: Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the 501 00:36:15,610 --> 00:36:20,850 Speaker 1: work of Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited the scripts. Starring 502 00:36:20,890 --> 00:36:24,650 Speaker 1: in this series of Cautionary Tales are Helena Bonham Carter 503 00:36:25,130 --> 00:36:31,450 Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Wright, alongside Nazar Alderazzi, Ed Gohan, Melanie Gutteridge, 504 00:36:31,850 --> 00:36:37,850 Speaker 1: Rachel Hanshaw, Cobner, Holbrook Smith, Greg Lockett, Massa Munroe, and 505 00:36:37,970 --> 00:36:41,490 Speaker 1: Rufus Wright. The show would not have been possible without 506 00:36:41,490 --> 00:36:46,490 Speaker 1: the work of Mea LaBelle, Jacob Weisberg, Heather Fain, John Schnaz, 507 00:36:47,090 --> 00:36:53,250 Speaker 1: Carli mcgliori, Eric Sandler, Emily Rostick, Maggie Taylor, Daniella La Khan, 508 00:36:53,650 --> 00:36:58,770 Speaker 1: and Maya Kanning. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. 509 00:36:59,130 --> 00:37:02,050 Speaker 1: If you like the show, please remember to share, rate, 510 00:37:02,530 --> 00:37:03,170 Speaker 1: and review 511 00:37:12,890 --> 00:37:20,570 Speaker 3: Pttlyttics