As promised a couple of weeks ago, I’ve now gotten a copy of Sam L. Savage’s The Flaw of Averages from my local library. Although I am still reading it, I can already say that it is an enjoyable read, accessible, and contains a wealth of valuable insights that I’ll be sharing with you. I’ll be buying my own copy soon, and encourage you to take a look at it as well. It has already gotten me thinking more about how much better we need to understand the concept of risk.
We have all grown up in an era in which computing technology has had an increasing influence on the way we think about pretty much everything. In my first year of high school, slide rules were required for those taking physics classes. By the time I took the physics class (in my senior year), we were able to instead share the one calculator the school had bought for each classroom in the physics department. I suspect that some of today’s technologies will someday be as outdated as slide rules are today. If you don’t even know what a slide rule is, don’t worry (but you can read more about it here).