3 MINUTE MONDAY

Hi friend,

Thank you so much to everyone who's come out to see me on tour so far. It's so fun. Thank you for all the love <3

“Why is it that even the best billiard players can't reliably plan combination shots (shots where the cue ball hits another ball which in turn hits yet another ball and so on) that have three or four ball collisions?

Wouldn't it be possible to simply calculate the required angles of the collisions and then as a world-class professional execute the shot with precision?

In the world of mathematical billiards (billiards where balls don't have mass) this would be possible.

However, when playing real billiards you have to take into account all the uncertainties around us.

The initial direction of the cue ball might be off by just a tiny fraction.

But since this error gets amplified with each collision, the direction of the last ball might be something completely unexpected.

Even the small imperfections of our billiard table have to be also taken into account.

Let's say we replace our human player with a robot.

This robot has mechanical arms that are significantly more reliable at shooting the cue ball compared to our human player.

We also find a better billiard table with less imperfections.

Finally we bring in a computer that allows us to input different data about our environment and then calculate the initial trajectory of the cue ball.

There are quite a lot of equipment and people around our table.

We have the robot and the computer.

There are engineers and scientists in white lab coats fine-tuning the robot and entering data into the computer.

The human player is still in the room, curious to see if the robot can beat her.

At which point do we have to take into account the gravitational forces of all these people and equipment?

The answer is after the sixth or seventh ball collision.

The limits of our abilities to predict the events on the table are much lower than we might have guessed.

In fact, if you want to predict the movement of an oxygen molecule reliably after roughly 50 collisions, you have to take into account the gravitational effect of a single electron located at the edge of our universe.

These calculations are based on mathematical physicist Michael Berry's work.

Why do you need to care about the predictability of billiard shots?

The point of this story is to help us notice the existence of uncertainties around us; even the smallest unknowns will start to affect our predictions dramatically as the chain of interactions grows longer.

The mathematical world is unfortunately a fantasy.”

Which means that your desire to control and predict your life is not only painful, but impossible.

— huge h/t to Joonas Kykkänen. Start writing again pls.

MODERN WISDOM

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent.
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This week’s upcoming episodes:

Monday.
The Fat Electrician - beautifully retold stories of the most hardcore war heroes you’ve never heard of. Listen now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Thursday.
Daniel Cox - why are men and women becoming increasingly divided? Some great insights from one of the leading researchers on the planet.

Saturday.
Martin Seligman - the creator of the field of Positive Psychology. Legendary.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED

1.
​Political correctness may have helped make 9/11 possible.

“On the morning of September 11, 2001, a ticket agent found Mohamed Atta’s behaviour suspicious and briefly wondered whether he might be a terrorist.

Unfortunately, however, he dismissed the idea for fear he might be racially profiling Atta.

It’s a difficult balancing act. Obviously, we should try to root out discriminatory biases in our thinking and practices.

At the same time, though, we need to avoid misdiagnosing legitimate concerns about specific individuals or acts as examples of those biases.” — Steve Stewart-Williams

2.
​There is no reason to live a sad life out of pointless loyalty.

“It's good to romanticise meaningful suffering.

It's bad to romanticise pointless suffering.

A good life is found in telling the two apart.” — Jake Kozloski

3.
​Charles Darwin may have been one of the grumpiest scientists of all time.

“I loathe, I abhor the sea, & all ships which sail on it.”
-Charles Darwin to his sister, 4 Aug 1836

“I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before.”
-Charles Darwin to William Fox, 24 Oct 1852

“I am very tired, very stomachy & hate nearly the whole world”
-Charles Darwin to Thomas Huxley, 10 Sep 1860

“I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything.”
-Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, 1 Oct 1861

“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees.”
-Charles Darwin to John Lubcock, 3 Sep 1862

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Big love,
Chris x

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PS
Neutonic is now live in Walmart. All the tags on Instagram are making me so happy. Thank you