I’m Michael Lugo. I have a PhD in mathematics from Penn and until recently taught statistics at Berkeley. Currently I am a quantitative analyst at viagogo.
This blog is the reincarnation of the old God Plays Dice, and is about mathematics, not anything to do with religion. The name is my answer to a quote of Einstein in a letter to Max Born: “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the ‘old one.’ I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.” Every so often this blog gets referred to as “your blog with a German name”, which amuses me greatly because I only know a little German.
I think the Internet is awesome.
If you want to follow this blog elsewhere: there’s an RSS feed at gottwurfelt.wordpress.com/feed and a Twitter account, which should automatically update when new posts are made, at @gottwurfelt.
The math in your blog seems to bounce up from the lines of text.. You could consider adding
.center-column img.latex {
margin-bottom: 0;
}
or something like that to some .css file.
Thanks for the tip. I had noticed the problem but hadn’t had time to find a solution yet.
Your algorithm for calculating Hebrew holidays is incorrect by assuming that Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, etc are not permitted to fall on Friday or Saturday coincident with the Jewish Sabbath.
Indeed, these special occurrences are celebrated with double reverence. You will need to adjust your input parameters.
Hi Michael,
I thought you might be interested in this interview I did with Professor Greg Chaitin on his new book – ‘Proving Darwin: Making Biology Mathematical’
Feel free to make a blog post about it if you wish.
Tom
One thing that may interest you: poker. You know game theory and enough math to compute and model most things relevant in poker. You can make money out of it if you invest time in it. This is work, and definitely not for everyone, but I think many mathematicians would benefit alot from knowing poker, how to play, practicing it a few months to gain that experience -over one summer say.
This is something to consider from the point of view of Isabella Laba’s post on alternatives to academic careers.
This is something I am myself trying. So far I have won like 13EUR, through free challenges on Barrière poker and Winamax (I play in play money, and they give real money if you do well.) I am in France -my name is Paul Le Meur. Not sure how it is in the US, they are working on legislation I think.
It is again not for everyone, but definitely something very interesting in many respects.
Thanks for your regular posts on probability and math – I have been reading your blog for a year now. Recent reaction to the 1:1100 risk of an Asteroid hitting NYC in 2028 led me to write about how most people don’t understand probability or micromorts http://abundantmichael.com/blog/index.cfm/2013/2/11/Risk-Asteroid-micromorts-and-the-zeitgeist perhaps you can use in your blog. I would have emailed you but I didn’t see a Contact page on your website.