The Doomsday Calculation: How an Equation that Predicts the Future Is Transforming Everything We Know About Life and the Universe

by William Poundstone

Overview

From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe.

In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy.

But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive?

The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316440691
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	653,165
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 5.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

William Poundstone is the author of sixteen books, including Head in the Cloud, Rock Breaks Scissors, Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, How Would You Move Mount Fuji?, and Fortune's Formula. He has written for The Believer, The Economist, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Esquire, Harper's, Harvard Business Review, the New York Times op-ed page and Book Review, Village Voice, and many other publications. He won the 2011 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award.
 

Table of Contents

Diana and Charles 3

Part I Consider the Lemming 7

How to Predict Everything 9

Riddle of the Sphinx 24

The Minister of Tunbridge Wells 32

A History of Grim Reckoning 43

Twelve Reasons Why the Doomsday Argument Is Wrong 57

Twenty-Four Dogs in Albuquerque 71

Baby Names and Bomb Fragments 82

Sleeping Beauty 102

The Presumptuous Philosopher 110

Tarzan Meets Jane 121

The Shooting Room 128

The Metaphysics of Gumball Machines 136

Part II Life, Mind, Universe 147

The Simulation Hypothesis 149

The Fermi Question 166

The Princess in the Tower 173

Two Questions for an Extraterrestrial 184

Pandora's Box 194

Life and Death in Many Worlds 209

1/137 224

Summoning the Demon 241

You Are Here 256

Acknowledgments 263

Notes 265

Sources 283

Index 297

What People are Saying About This

Publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Heavens on Earth - Michael Shermer

“One of the best science writers of our time has taken on one of the most interesting and important subjects of all time—how to predict the future under great uncertainty. What are the odds that a nuclear weapon will detonate by accident? Is there a chance that humanity will destroy itself this century? What is the probability that aliens are out there? Will we colonize the galaxy? Are we living in a computer simulation? Is your marriage or partnership about to come to an end? These seemingly unrelated questions may be answered through one equation and a handful of principles that, when applied, may very well save humanity. A gripping read.

Editorial Reviews

04/08/2019

Poundstone (How to Predict the Unpredictable), who studied physics at MIT, provides an intriguing, if less than revelatory, look at Bayes’ theorem as a useful way of predicting the probability of future events. Poundstone explains the theorem, the creation of 18th-century mathematician and clergyman Thomas Bayes, as a way of “assigning a probability to something that has never happened” and applies it to a host of questions, ranging from the mundane (how long will one’s relationships last?) to the cosmic (are there other universes?) and the existential (are humans inhabitants of another civilization’s digital world?). He also applies it to his central question: when will civilization end? His litany of ways the world might end is impressively varied and creative, and includes the human race being rendered sterile by mutated salmonella, and an errant experiment at the CERN supercollider creating a quantum condition that destroys not just life on earth but the entire universe as well. Readers concerned with the big questions Poundstone explores will find much of interest in this enjoyable mathematics primer, even if they are likely to remain unconvinced the equation is as intellectually transformative as he claims. Agent: John Brockman, Brockman Inc. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"A very interesting and definitive book on this subject."—J. Richard Gott III

"One of the best science writers of our time has taken on one of the most interesting and important subjects of all time — how to predict the future under great uncertainty. What are the odds that a nuclear weapon will detonate by accident? Is there a chance that humanity will destroy itself this century? What is the probability that aliens are out there? Will we colonize the galaxy? Are we living in a computer simulation? Is your marriage or partnership about to come to an end? These seemingly unrelated questions may be answered through one equation and a handful of principles that, when applied, may very well save humanity. A gripping read."—Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and author of Heavens on Earth

From the Publisher