I am, or at any rate used to be, a mathematician who specialized in the theory of probability. (That's documented elsewhere on this website!) I was never a gambler, though. I always liked to know the odds, and while I might have bet money when I knew they were in my favor, they never were at Las Vegas, the racetracks or the lotteries. Of course  often life demands that we take chances all the same.  I did bet on the stock market sometimes, and in some other areas – well, you’ll see.

Episode one.  In the summer of 1968 my wife and I with our (then) three small boys arrived in Denmark; I was going to meet the famous Japanese probabilist Kiyoshi Ito.  For some reason our first stop was a small cafe in Aarhus.  In the back was a slot machine.  It didn’t dispense candy or anything like that; it was an actual gambling-type slot machine.  It took one-krone coins.

Our oldest son Matt, going on nine years old, had somehow acquired one such coin.  Of course he saw the machine, and wanted to put in his krone.  It was his entire capital in Danish money!  Perhaps you can imagine my reaction; I calmly (I hope!) tried to talk him out of it.  I said predictable parent-type things like “You’ll just lose your money and you won’t get anything back.”  I told him the chance of winning anything was very, very small, and suggested he could buy something good to eat instead.  No use; he really wanted to play that machine.  Not to be a dictator, I finally agreed.  At least it might be a good lesson for him, I thought.

So Matt put his solitary coin into that slot machine -- and instantly made a liar out of his father.  Out came a flood of kroner!  Maybe there were 30 or so, but it seemed like a fortune.*  I couldn’t believe it.  I thought I’d given him good advice, and expected Matt to learn that gambling doesn’t pay.  But it does! -- or in any case it did that time. Would my son ever again believe anything I might tell him?  It didn’t seem likely at all.  But he was very happy.

Episode two.  Once, many years later, my then teenage daughter Noelle was coming home from some foreign adventure. I was in Boston for other reasons, and so I went to the airport to meet her.  It was good luck that we could drive home together to Norwich.

It was a miserably hot, humid mid-summer day.  Of course Noelle had been in an air-conditioned plane and terminal, and when we came outside it hit her hard.  “It’s really hot, Dad,” she said, or words to that effect.  On a whim, for no reason that I can recall now except maybe to try some feeble humor, I assured her that yes, it was very hot here in Boston, but we were going home to Vermont and it would be much nicer there.  I don’t think she said much.

So we found my car and started driving.  It takes more than two hours, and it’s all on interstate highways until the last few miles.  That car had no AC so we kept the windows open.  It didn’t help a lot, and a hot wind blew in our faces as we drove through southern New Hampshire and turned off on Route 89 to head toward Lebanon.  That’s where we leave the interstate, and it’s less than 10 miles from home. 

It was still almost as hot as when we’d left Boston.  Noelle said so, and made some remark about my claim that in Vermont it would be different, and better. Whimsically, or idiotically, I stuck to my promise.  “We aren’t in Vermont yet!” was my answer.

Suddenly, with less than 10 minutes to go, the sky got very dark. As we approached the NH/VT border, we had to shut the car windows because it was raining buckets. Very quickly the temperature dropped at least 15 degrees, and we crossed into Vermont in comfort. “See, I told you!” -- I’m sure I said it, or at least looked it.  But I could hardly believe it myself.

Noelle had to decide if her father could really command the weather, or if he just had uncanny powers of prediction.  After all, what other explanation could there be?

So there it is: one time I had overwhelming odds on my side and lost; the other time they were hugely against me and I won.  So much for practical applications of probability! As the Book of Ecclesiastes says, “the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong... but time and chance happeneth to them all.” 

But is this any way to bring up kids?

                                                                                                John Lamperti

*  I asked Matt for his recollection of this moment.  He wrote, “the only thing I remember differently is that the machine paid out in tokens and you had to persuade the cafe owner to exchange them for money which he claimed he wasn't supposed to do.” 

Go Back