A funny paper from 1979: 'Why We Should Not Make Mean Log of Wealth Big Though Years to Act Are Long' https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=8d9c06de772124caff8179d83d31fc9f7ffe5ed7

This is about the Kelly Criterion, which is a suggestion for how much you should bet on a risky investment with positive expected value. There was a heated debate about whether this criterion was only useful when your utility was logarithmic in money, or if it had broader applicability. The argument got so bad that Samuelson thought his opponents needed everything explained in words of one syllable!

Not only is this very patronising, he also screws it up by using two syllable words in a couple of places. But I still think he's right about the Kelly Criterion.

#Math #Maths #Mathematics #KellyCriterion