The Influence of Randomness

Appearing in the middle two hours, physicist and writer Leonard Mlodinow spoke about his recent studies on randomness, and the influence it has in our daily lives. The title of his new book, The Drunkard's Walk, refers to the idea that we often end up getting to places through a meandering pathway. 

Randomness takes the form of unplanned or unpredictable events, which can end up greatly affecting a person's choices and outcomes, he explained. Even though someone might have certain abilities, due to circumstances beyond their control, there is a certain amount of variation in how things turn out, he added. 

He cited some instances in baseball, such as the year when Roger Maris hit 61 homeruns, even though his average was 45, as an example of random variation. George shared an incident when he had a life-saving intuition while driving, and Mlodinow suggested that when people have certain intuitions they may be responding to subconscious physical cues. 

The last hour featured Open Lines with callers sharing incidents of when they had prominent intuitions.