Ulam’s Monte Carlo method and the harnessing of randomness

Stanislaw Ulam

Source: © American Philosophical Society/Science Photo Library

Randomness in the service of confidence

When someone says that ‘everything happens for a reason’ they betray their deterministic wiring. Yet connecting cause and effect is a tricky business, and never more so than when probability is involved. Our gut feelings are often wildly at odds with where ‘reason’ should lead us.