Re: Back to the Future

[Gassler Robert <rsgassle@xxxxxxxxx>]

When I teach about the binomial distribution, the example I use is the probability of global thermonuclear war. If the chance is .01 in any given year, it's two-to-one that it will happen at least once in the next century. Of course, if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

>Subject:
>Re: PEN-L Digest - 4 Jun 2007 to 5 Jun 2007 (#2007-159)
>From:
>Leigh Meyers <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>
>Date:
>Wed, 6 Jun 2007 10:31:11 -0700
>
>
>The commentator I act as internet news director for, Travus T. Hipp,
>once said that Samuel Colt made everyone in the 'Wild West' equal...
>Kalashnikov did that for the Third World (The older models could
>almost be completely manufactured with an open fire pit furnace and
>primitive machine tools), and nuclear weapons proliferation will do
>the same for the nations of the world after a while.
>
>Has anyone done an econometric study or cost/benefit analysis of a
>global nuclear war yet? It seems germane.
>
>Leigh
>
>--------------------
>
>The arms racing literature of MAD in the poli-sci approach to GT is only
>the tip of the iceberg on this research; my favorite is  Dr. Strangelove
>(an amalgam of John von Neumann, Edward Teller, and Henry
>Kissinger(sic)) modeled in GT:
>
>http://www.nd.edu/~dlindley/handouts/strangelovenotes.html#N_3_
>http://www.epsnet.org/2004/pps/Craciun.pdf
>
>I remember Hipp from alternative format radio (KSAN-FM), which makes me
>much older than (radioactive) dirt.
>
>Ann
>
>