Your second ducat, like your second million, is never quite as sweet.

The ultimate compound return rate is acutely sensitive to fat tails.

Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children.

Bernoulli's real contribution was to coin a word. The word has been translated into English as "utility". It describes this subjective value people place on money.

Shannon's most radical insight was that meaning was irrelevant.

At a bare minimum, understanding entails being able to detect an internal contradiction: a paradox.

People tend to be clueless about prices. Contrary to economic theory, we don't really decide between A and B by consulting our invisible price tags and purchasing the one that yields the higher utility, he says. We make do with guesstimates and a vague recollection of what things are “supposed to cost.”