random quotes

Let us draw an arrow arbitrarily. If as we follow the arrow we find more and more of the random element in the world, then the arrow is pointing towards the future; if therandomelement decreasesthearrow pointstowards the past† I shall usethe phrase'time's arrow'to express this one-way property of time which has no analogue in space.

- SirArthur Stanley Eddington
  The Nature of the Physical World, ch.4. Martin  Amis used the phrase'Time's  Arrow' for the title of his1991novel.

The fairest order in the world is a heap of random sweepings.

-Heraclitus   fl.500
Collected in Charles H Kahn The Art and Thought of Heraclitus (1979).

Afew weeksago Ihad a revelation and told my secretary that I could give him a synthesis of forty-six years of living with economic policy. It is: 'Economic policy is random with respect to the performance of the American economy, but, thank God, there isn't much of it.'

- Herbert Stein
  Washington Bedtime Stories.