The Broken Dice, and Other Mathematical Tales of Chance

The unpredictability of nature is both exhilarating and unnerving. Whether in science, the casino, or merely our everyday lives, chance is a mysterious force we do the utmost to control, usually with little success. Although scientists and philosophers have for centuries argued that the universe is governed by regular and necessary laws, nature quite frequently refuses to play by the rules. Why is it that even the most ingenious attempts to eliminate the free play of chance have failed? Is life really nothing other than the roll of dice or the toss of a coin? In "The Broken Dice", Ivar Ekeland contemplates these and many other questions concerning the randomness of nature. Here he extends his consideration of the catastrophe theory of the universe begun in his "Mathematics and the Unexpected", drawing upon rich literary sources (particularly myth) and current topics in mathematics and physics, such as chaos theory, information theory, and particle physics. One central theme, the relationship between chance and fate, is explored through a 13thtury Norse saga in which Saint Olav becomes ruler of a village by the roll of a die. In this mythic episode, chance and divine providence compete as alternative and contradictory explanations of the same decisive event. Yet Ekeland argues that the contradiction is only apparent; both explanations are attempts to impose meaning on the inescapable, uncontrollable flow of events. Chance, he concludes, is a fundamental given of the universe, one that myth as much as science has struggled for millennia to understand.