My guest today is something of a rebel.
Back in the 70s when he was 24 years old, he walked into a casino in Las Vegas,
sat down at a roulette table, and beat the house.
To anyone watching the wheel spin and the ball clatter to its final resting place,
Doine Farmer's choice of number would have looked like a lucky guess,
but knowing the physics of the game and armed with the world's first wearable computer,
which he designed, seemingly random wins were actually somewhat predictable.
Randomness, says Doine, is a concept that depends on the state of your understanding,
something he's shown time and again over his career.
Professor Doin Farmer is an American scientist and entrepreneur who pioneered many of the fields that define the scientific agenda of our time –
chaos theory, complex systems and wearable computing.
Today he uses big data and ever more powerful computers to apply what's called complex systems science to the economy to make better predictions about our future.
Much like roulette, the way the economy works can appear random,
but with the right tools and understanding, there anything but.
Now, director of the complex economics program at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford,
Doin says there's a real need to use these powers of prediction to help resolve one of the most pressing questions of our time,
how best to prevent climate change.
Doin Farmer, welcome to the Life Scientific.
Very happy to be here.
We'll get to how you beat the roulette table a little later,