9 Big Entropy and the Generalized Linear Model
Most readers of this book will share the experience of fighting with tangled electrical cords. Whether behind a desk or stuffed in a box, cords and cables tend toward tying themselves in knots. Why is this? There is of course real physics at work. But at a descriptive level, the reason is entropy: There are vastly more ways for cords to end up in a knot than for them to remain untied.127 So if I were to carefully lay a dozen cords in a box and then seal the box and shake it, we should bet that at least some of the cords will be tangled together when I again open the box. We don't need to know anything about the physics of cords or knots. We just have to bet on entropy. Events that can happen vastly ...
Get Statistical Rethinking now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
