The Strange Math That Predicts (Almost) Anything - Markov Chains

Sponsored by Brilliant
👉 To try everything Brilliant has to offer for free for a full 30 days, visit http://brilliant.org/veritasium. You’ll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.

How a feud in Russia led to modern prediction algorithms.

If you’re looking for a molecular modeling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV

▀▀▀
A huge thank you to Brian Hayes, David Aldous, Geoff Engelstein, Jeffrey Rosenthal, Jimmy He, Mark Priestley, Michael Choi, Peter Norvig, Sam Power, and Thomas Haigh for their invaluable expertise and contributions to this video.

And a special thank you to Madeline Johnson for her excellent fact-checking.

▀▀▀
0:00 The Law of Large Numbers
4:37 What is a Markov Chain?
9:43 Ulam and Solitaire
12:21 Nuclear Fission
15:46 The Monte Carlo Method
16:32 The first search engines
19:07 Google is born
25:16 How does predictive text work?
27:10 Are Markov chains memoryless?
29:41 How to perfectly shuffle a deck of cards

▀▀▀
References:
https://ve42.co/RefsMarkov

Images & Video:
https://ve42.co/7Z

▀▀▀
Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, JT, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Meekay, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, TTST, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, wolfee

▀▀▀
Writers: Kaela Albert, Casper Mebius & Derek Muller
Producer & Director: Kaela Albert
Editors: Peter Nelson & Jack Saxon
Camera Operators: Gabe Strong, Gregor Cavlovic & Derek Muller
Animator: Andrew neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli & Ivy Trello
Illustrator: Caine Esperanzo, Jakub Misiek & Maria Gustanovich
Assistant Editor: James Stuart
Researchers: Darius Garewal, Gabe Strong & Emilia Gyles
Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley & Ben Powell
Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence, Casper Mebius, Sulli Yost and Henry Van Dyck
Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5 and Storyblocks
Music from Epidemic Sound