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As a probability theorist (who knows very little about physics) I understand this machine as relying on the well-studied and widely debunked martingale fallacy - that you can play until you are slightly ahead, and then stop. Then repeat from the start. Perhaps I am missing something. If I'm right, there are lots of ways of tweaking this system to make it appear more effective on different time scales and with different constraints. This is exactly what the folklore of 'gambling systems' looks like - although none can violate the laws of probability, they can be optimized to give a better appearance of doing so. Suppose I told you to go to Vegas, bet $1 on black at roulette. If you lose, bet $1 million on red. If you lose a second time, bet $1 trillion on black. You would probably recognize this as an unworkable strategy quite quickly. Now try another strategy: write the numbers 1, 2, 4, 4, 3, 7 on a piece of paper. Bet the sum of the first amount and the last amount in the list (on an even chance such as red or black). If you win, cross out both numbers. If you lose, write down sum of the two numbers (the amount you lost) at the end of the list. Repeat until all the numbers are crossed out. You're $21 up. Repeat as many times as the number of dollars you want, divided by 21. The second strategy has been highly optimized, not to beat casinos, but to give gamblers the strong sense that they are either guaranteed to win, or that they are coming very close to winning, except for some outlying bad luck. However, the two strategies are equally constrained by mathematical laws from making you infinitely rich with certainty. |