The Influence of Randomness

Show Audio

Highlights:

Writing for TV & w/Hawking win real Meanderings & Variation win real 'Illusion of Small Numbers' win real

Date:	05-14-08
Host:	George Noory
Guests:	Leonard Mlodinow, Richard C. Hoagland

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 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.

Hoagland Update

First hour guest, Richard C. Hoagland reacted to the hype around a NASA press conference (which turned out to be a news release about a supernova discovery in our galaxy-- see article below). He speculated that the announcement might be NASA's way of drawing attention to the center of the galaxy (which our solar system is said to be aligning with in 2012).

Bumper Music

Bumper music from Wednesday May 14, 2008

1.	Barracuda Heart	2.	Cannonball Supertramp	3.	Caribbean Breeze The Rippingtons
4.	Here Comes the Sun Beatles	5.	Hold Your Head Up Argent	6.	Inca Dance Cusco
7.	It Ain't Me Babe The Turtles	8.	It Ain't Me Babe The Turtles	9.	It Ain't Me Babe Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon
10.	Jessica Allman Brothers Band	11.	Life in a Northern Town Dream Academy	12.	Midnight Express (The Chase) Giorgio Moroder
13.	Midnight Express (The Chase) Giorgio Moroder	14.	Mummer's Dance Loreena McKennitt	15.	Only Time Enya
16.	Radar Love Golden Earring	17.	Red Skies The Fixx	18.	Self Control Laura Branigan
19.	Tuesday Afternoon Moody Blues