Extraordinary Outcomes: Shaping an Otherwise Unpredictable Future

5Conquer UncertaintyBring the Future to the Present

For as long as the human brain has been able to imagine the future, we have been trying to make uncertain events more predictable. Whether through prophets, tea leaves, mathematical models, or empirical studies of cause and effect, people have searched for tools to help reduce the uncertainty of the future. During the scientific revolution that started in the 1500s, people thought that models could be developed that would allow them to finally dispel all doubt about the future. All they had to do was find the initial conditions that started the universe, plug those conditions into sophisticated equations, and they would be able to predict any event—past, present, and future. This belief was reinforced in the late 1600s by the success of Isaac Newton's theory that described the motion of planets around the sun. Astonishingly for the time, Newton's model made it possible to predict future eclipses of the sun and moon, the tides of the oceans, and even the existence and location of planets that had not yet been discovered—but that were soon confirmed by observation. Newton and other thought leaders of his day had come to believe that the universe was orderly, knowable, and ultimately predictable.

Because of his reputation and stature in Britain as an eminent scientist, in 1699 Isaac Newton was appointed master of the British Royal Mint. Newton took his new job seriously, and applied his scientific thinking to money,¹ creating ...