Chapter 25 Chapter 22 Probability and Luck

If I could sum up the best formulas in top-rated commercial and popular television programming in one simple sentence, it would be this: Money first.I say this in the hope that no one will think I'm being overly cynical.During prime time, the difference in ratings alone is a difference of millions of dollars in advertising.Especially since the early 80s, television has been driven almost entirely by profit.For example, news feeds and news specials are on the decline, a pathetic excuse for networks to evade the FCC's order to improve children's programming.From this we can see this trend. (For example, the paradigmatic role of education is highlighted in a cartoon series that systematically misrepresents the skills and lifestyles of our Pleistocene ancestors by portraying dinosaurs as pets.) In my At the time of writing this book, mass television in the United States is in real danger of losing government support.Commercial programming content is also in steep, long-term decline.

In this context, demanding more real science programming on television seems naive and hopeless.But network owners and showrunners have large, small audiences whose futures are worrying.Television stations must realize that they have some responsibility for the future of this country.There is evidence that science shows can be successful, and people are hungry for more.I still hope that, eventually, we'll see plenty of well-made, engaging real tech shows on the world's major networks. Baseball and football have their Aztec ancestors, and football is essentially a slightly modified re-creation of the sport of hunting.We've been playing this game since before we evolved into humans.Lacrosse is a sport played by ancient Native Americans from which the game evolved.But basketball is a new sport.Long before humans played basketball, humans were already making movies.

At first, it didn't occur to them to dig a hole under the peach-shaped blue so they wouldn't have to climb another flight of stairs to retrieve the ball.But in the time since then the movement has evolved and changed.This developmental process was largely at the hands of African-American athletes.Basketball finally developed into the most perfect form, it is a sport form with the best combination of intelligence, precision, courage, daring, foresight, skill, teamwork, grace and elegance. The five-foot-three Muggsy Borg organized a gang of giants.Michael Jordan sprints in from the perimeter beyond the free throw line; Larry Bird dribbles past opponents with precision and surprise; Kanem Alberta Jerba hits a high, floating long shot.Basketball is not like football, a sport with strong physical contact. It is a contest of skills.This is a kind of full-court personnel-pressing sport. The two teams quickly switch offense and defense, catch and dribble, intercept the ball in the air, and stuff the ball from nowhere high into the basket from the air. The combination of wisdom and fitness is the harmony and unity of mind and body.No wonder the sport is so mesmerizing.

Since National Basketball Association games have been a staple of television, I have felt that it could be used to teach science and math.To appreciate a free throw average of O.926, you have to know the problem of converting fractions to decimal.Fixed-point throwing is an application of Newton's first law of motion.Every shot in basketball reflects the ball's motion on a parabola, a curve determined by the same gravitational force in physics that defines the flight line of a ballistic missile, or the Earth's orbit around the sun. Or the trajectory of a spaceship when it meets at a point on a distant world.The changes in the center of mass of the body during the athlete's slam dunk are almost the same as the changes in the orbiting spaceship around the center of the earth.

In order to put the ball in the hoop, you have to jump with a very precise speed, one percent error and gravity will make you miss the opportunity.Pitchers trying to score threes, whether they know it or not, have to correct for gas drag.A basketball that hits the floor gets closer to the ground each time it bounces, because of the second law of thermodynamics.Daley Dawkins or Shaquille O'Neal smashing the backboard is also a good opportunity to teach science, which is the result of the transmission of shock waves.The friction on the backboard keeps the basketball spinning because the momentum from the bevel is still in play.It is a foul to touch the ball within the "cylinder" of the basket.However, an important mathematical idea we are discussing now is to generate n-dimensional objects by moving n-1-dimensional objects.

In the classroom, in the newspaper, on television, why don't we use sports to teach science? When I was a teenager, my father would always bring home a copy of the day's paper and study (often with gusto) the baseball scores on it.Those things looked to me like dry, unintelligible abbreviations (W, SS, K, WL, AB, RBI), but they seemed to talk to Dad.Newspapers everywhere printed these things.I guess they might not be too difficult for me.So I, too, became fascinated by baseball scoring statistics. (I know the stats help me learn decimals. But I still get a little crooked and confused when I hear someone say "not a thousand" every time baseball season starts. But "1,000" doesn't Equal to "1.000", the lucky golfer hits a ball for 1.)

We can also look at the financial pages of newspapers.In these reports, is there any introductory material?Explain footnotes?What does the abbreviation mean?hardly.Whether you can understand it all depends on your own ability.Look at those voluminous statistics!Would anyone still want to read these things?It is not that their reading ability is not enough, but that the content of the newspaper cannot arouse their interest.Why can't we do the same improvement in math, science and technology reporting? In all sports, athletes seem to perform well when they are very comfortable.In basketball, this is called a sharpshooter.You rarely go wrong at this point.I remember an overtime game in which Michael Jordan, not normally a long-distance shooter, shrugged in astonishment as he hit so many three-pointers in a row from all angles on the floor effortlessly.On the contrary, when you have not entered the warm-up state, the results are very unsatisfactory.When an athlete is at his best, he seems to be infused with a magical power.When he's not in a state, he seems to be possessed by an omen or spell.Of course, this is a magical statement, not a scientific one.

Good luck does not come often, even in unspecified things.Luck can do some confusing things.If I flick a coin ten times in a row, the order in which the front and back sides of the coin appear is: positive positive positive positive positive positive positive anyway. 8 heads out of 10, 4 heads in a row!Did I exert some kind of mind control over the coin?Is my brain warming up?It seems that there is a regularity in it that cannot be changed. But then it occurred to me that if I keep flipping the coin before and after I get heads in a row, there is a pattern implied in a longer and slightly tedious sequence: heads Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway.If I'm allowed to focus on certain outcomes and not others, I can always "prove" that there are contingencies in my luck.This is a false conclusion detected by the lie detection device, luck is just your favorite state.We only remember that we passed five levels and killed six generals, but we forgot to go to Maicheng.If you shoot 50 percent from long distance and you can't use willpower to improve your shooting percentage, then your shooting percentage on the basketball court is the same as my coin toss.If I get heads 8/10 of the time, then your chances of hitting the coin are 8/10.Basketball tells us some knowledge of probability and statistics and rigorous thinking methods.

A study by my colleague Tom Girovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, shows that our understanding of luck in basketball is wrong.Girovich studied whether the National Basketball Association scored more points due to luck, as fans imagined.After making one, two or three shots, the chances of players not making consecutive shots increases after a miss.This point is the same whether it is for a famous player or a not-so-famous player, whether it is a long shot or an unmarked shot (a shot when there is no block) (of course, the scoring rate will vary. Due to the opponent's enhanced defense of the team's "magic shooter", it has declined).There is also this related but different myth in baseball that someone who hits the ball a lower than average percentage of times is that he hits one "on schedule".This statement is no different from the statement that instead of getting heads and tails 50% of the time in a toss of a coin, it is possible to get tails next time if heads are not many times in consecutive coin tosses.If good luck occurs more often than you expect, then the odds are hard to spot.

But, in any case, such an answer is not satisfactory.It makes it seem like this isn't really the case.If you ask the players, the coaches or the fans, they'll say, we want to find meaning, even in random numbers.We are a people obsessed with the meaning of numbers.When famous coach Reid Auerbach heard about the research Girovic was doing, his reaction was: "Who is this guy? He's doing research like this, and I can't just sit back and watch." You can tell exactly how he felt about it. how to see.If good luck in basketball doesn't come up more often than heads or tails in coin tosses, there's nothing magical about it.Does this mean that athletes are mere moving puppets governed solely by the laws of chance?of course not.Their average shooting percentages are really a reflection of their individual skills, it just has to do with how often and for how long their best moments occur.

Of course, it would be fun to think that the gods keep some players at their best and snub those who aren't.What does this mean?Is there any harm in a little mystification?This of course involves tedious statistical analysis.But not harmful to basketball and other sports.But, as a habitual way of thinking, it will get us stuck in some of our other favorite games. The mad scientist on "Gilligan's Island," giggling as he debugged an electric device capable of manipulating other people's minds to serve his evil purposes, "Scientist, yes! Crazy, no!" "I'm sorry, Dr. Nadnik! People on Earth don't want to be compressed to 3 inches tall, although it saves a lot of space and energy...." On Saturday morning children's television, cartoon superheroes are making their way to A true scientist patiently explains this ethical dilemma. From what I've seen on TV, I think it's easy to make such judgments (and from some I haven't seen, such as "Mad Scientist's City Club" etc., that seem to be correct), Many so-called "scientists" are nothing more than a bunch of immoral fellows whose actions are motivated by a desire for power or insensitivity to the feelings of others.Passing on such a message to a child audience is tantamount to telling them: science is dangerous, scientists are scarier than monsters, and they are a bunch of lunatics. It follows that the application of science can also be dangerous, and I have been emphasizing that almost every major technological advance in human history—from the invention of stone tools to the use of fire—has an ethical duality. significance.These advances can be used by the ignorant or evil for dangerous purposes, or by the wise and good for the benefit of humanity.But only one aspect of this duality seems to be reflected in the programs offered to children. Where's the fun in science in all these shows?Did discovering how the universe came to be bring them pleasure?Did you experience the joy of learning something profound?How do you feel when you learn that science and technology have made special contributions to human well-being, or that medical and agricultural technologies have saved or created billions of lives. (Although, in all fairness, I should mention that the professor on Gilligan's Island used his scientific knowledge to solve practical problems for homeless people from time to time.) We live in a complex age in which we face many problems, no matter how they arise, that require a deep understanding of science and technology to find solutions.Modern society desperately needs the brightest minds who can find solutions to these problems.I don't think it's possible to encourage many talented young people to pursue careers in science or engineering by showing children this kind of Saturday morning TV or other American videos. Numerous, credulous, and critically incapacitating TV series and "specials" over the years - psychic powers, telepathy, the Bermuda Triangle, UFOs, ancient astronauts, Bigfoot, etc. ——Emerging in endlessly.The stylized TV series "We're Exploring" began by declaring that it would never judge opinions.In this show, you can see the eagerly expressed desire for miracles, even though they simply cannot stand up to the test of even the most basic scientific skepticism.No matter who it is, as long as it faces the camera, it is right to say whatever it wants.In these shows, the idea that any possible explanation needs to be substantiated by sufficient evidence is never expressed. The same is true of "Points of View and Mysteries," where, as the title suggests, bland mysteries are frowned upon, and countless outlandish results are thrown around. "We're Exploring" frequently takes on inherently interesting themes and systematically misrepresents the evidence.If there is now a prosaic scientific explanation, and a particularly extraordinary paranormal or psychic explanation, you might believe the one that is being detailed.We can take an example at hand: an author said in his book that there is a very important planet farther than Pluto.His evidence comes from a cylindrical seal from ancient Sumeria, carved before the invention of the telescope.He says his views are gradually being embraced by professional astronomers.In his book, there is no mention of the failure of astronomers to study the motions of Neptune, Pluto, and the four spacecraft expeditions to greater distances in an attempt to discover what he called the planet. The pictures in the TV program have not been identified and screened.An off-screen narrator talks about dinosaurs, but we see a stuffed mammoth; a narrator talks about a hovercraft, but the screen shows a helicopter taking off; we hear about lakes and floods There was a ragged voice, but what I saw was a mountain.They think none of this matters.Visuals have nothing to do with fact any more than commentary has to do with fact. There is a series called "Super Files".The show claims to welcome skeptical scrutiny of the paranormal, but in reality it spins stories of alien abductions, psychic powers and a government conspiracy to cover up facts of interest to all citizens.Hardly a single supernatural explanation exposes deceit, mental insanity, or misinterpretation of the natural world.A series that is closer to reality and more in line with the public interest should systematically dissect supernatural claims in the film, and every event should be explained in a language that everyone can understand.There will be dramatic tension as it reveals how misunderstanding and deception can arise from seemingly real supernatural phenomena.Maybe some investigator is always disappointed, hoping that next time there will be a truly paranormal event that will stand up to the scrutiny of skeptics. There are also some glaring flaws in TV sci-fi.For example, "Star Trek", although this film is very attractive, its pictures show the grand scenes of moving international and interstellar wars, but in many places lack the most basic scientific factual basis.Mr. Spock is a hybrid creature between a human and a life form that evolved independently on Vulcan. Generally speaking, the probability of success of this hybrid is no greater than that between a human and an artichoke.But the idea set a precedent in popular culture for alien-human hybrids, an idea that has since become a staple of alien abduction legends.Subsequent appearances of a large number of alien species in the various "Star Trek" TV series and movies are also inevitable.All we spend a lot of time looking at are those little human mutants.This phenomenon is driven by economic interests.This kind of film costs only an actor's salary and the cost of a latex mask, but it completely departs from the random nature of the evolutionary process.If there are aliens, I think most of them look less human than Klingen and Romulan (and the imagined level gap is larger due to the vastly different technological levels). "Star Trek" never took the question of evolution seriously. In many TV shows and movies, even very superficial science content (loose lines that are not important to the plot and basically have nothing to do with science) is very flawed.For a small fee, a production team can hire a graduate student to read a draft script and check it for scientific accuracy.But, as far as I know, they almost never do.This makes the otherwise exemplary movie "Star Wars" a simple, silly joke about "parsec" being a unit of velocity rather than distance.With a little care in this area, they can even improve the plot.Of course, they may also teach a little science to a wider audience through the film. Television feeds the gullible with plenty of pseudoscience.There's a lot of stuff on TV that touches on medicine and technology, but it's hard to find the science.Especially in the big commercial network, in the eyes of those executives, science programming means lower ratings, reduced profits.Nothing matters except money.There are also people with the title of "science reporter" among the television employees, and occasionally a newsreel is heard devoted to science.But we almost never see science from these films, just medicine and technology.I doubt there are any TV network employees whose main job is to read the weekly Nature or Science to see if there are any newsworthy scientific discoveries.When the Nobel Prizes in Science are announced each autumn, it is the time of "broadcasting" science supernews, an opportunity to explain to the public what the awards mean.But almost always we hear something like this: "...Hopefully one day humanity will beat cancer. Today in Belgrade..." How much science is there on the radio or on TV talk shows, on those boring Sunday morning shows where middle-aged white guys sit around and chime in with each other?When was the last time you heard a wise comment about science from the President of the United States?Why is there not a single hero in every TV show in America who dedicates himself to discovering how the universe works?At a time when a blockbuster murder trial has everyone talking casually about DNA testing, has television dedicated a primetime special to nucleic acid and genetics?I can't even remember seeing an accurate and detailed description of how a TV works on TV. By far the most effective means of arousing people's interest in science is television.But this hugely influential medium has done little to disseminate the joy of science and teach people the scientific method, while the "mad scientist" machine continues to wheeze its way. open. In a poll conducted in the early 1990s in the United States, two-thirds of adults knew nothing about the "information superhighway"; 42% of people did not know where Japan was located; 38% of people had never heard of the "Holocaust" " word.However, more than 90% of people have heard of the murders of Menendez, Bobbitt and O.J. Simpson; 99% of people have heard of the sexual harassment of a boy by singer Michael Jackson.America may be the most entertaining country in the world, but it pays a heavy price for it. Surveys conducted simultaneously in Canada and the United States show that TV viewers want to see more science programming.There is a good science series called "Nova" on the North American public broadcasting system.Sometimes there are good shows on the Discovery or Learning channels, or on CBC radio.Bill Nye's "Science Kids" program on the Public Broadcasting Service grew rapidly, and was characterized by engaging programming that covered many fields of science, sometimes even explaining the process of invention.These media have not achieved satisfactory results in terms of the breadth and depth of dissemination of scientific knowledge that is of great interest to the public, let alone benefit greatly from the public's deeper understanding of science. How can we get more scientific knowledge on TV?Here are some possible solutions: ■Regular broadcast of scientific wonders and scientific methods in news and commentary programs, showing the real exciting achievements of human beings in the process of invention. ■Shooting a series of "revealing secrets" to tell the audience how the long-standing major thinking and puzzling problems of human beings are solved from a rational perspective, including cases that have not been solved for a long time in forensic science and epidemiology. ■The alarm bell is ringing again: shooting a series of films, in this film, we will reproduce the process of the media and the public completely believing the lies fabricated by the government.The first two episodes could be a detailed look at the "incidents" in the Gulf of Tonkin and the demands of the "defense" by the unsuspecting and unprotected American general public and military personnel since 1945. ■Shooting a series with independent content for each episode, showing the major mistakes made by famous scientists, national leaders and religious figures and the misunderstanding of some important things. ■For those harmful pseudoscience and "try it out" for the audience to participate (twisting the spoon with the mind, telepathy, predicting the future, supernatural powers to cure diseases, reading without eyes, and what function to use to press the TV button at the audience's home ) program for real-time exposure.Tell the audience how they are deceiving: try to see for yourself. ■Adopt advanced computer drawing equipment, prepare scientific visual materials in advance, so that they can be interspersed and used in various news programs. ■Discussion of hot issues that do not require high production costs, this kind of live-shooting program is one hour per episode.The producer should make a budget for computer graphics, and the judges of the debate should set strict standards for providing arguments for both parties who hold different opinions. The scope of the discussion should be very wide.Topics discussed could include scientifically proven issues such as the formation of the Earth.Controversial issues with no definitive results can also be included, such as the question of whether a person's spirit survives death.Abortion issues, animal rights issues, genetic engineering issues, and the possible pseudoscience issues mentioned in this book. The public's mastery of more scientific knowledge has become an increasingly urgent need for the country.Television alone cannot provide the public with all the scientific knowledge they need.But if we are to make short-term gains in public understanding of science, television should be our starting point.