(Ebook) What a Coincidence!: On Unpredictability, Complexity and the Nature of Time by Bernhard Wessling ISBN 9783658406707, 3658406704

(Ebook) What a Coincidence!: On Unpredictability, Complexity and the Nature of Time by Bernhard Wessling ISBN 9783658406707, 3658406704

We are at least annoyed by very many coincidences. There may be sudden rain, whichwas not forecast, and the picnic outside falls into the water. Some coincidences are dangerous,such as a car that suddenly takes us the right of way. Some are even life-threatening,such as the accidental spread of the coronavirus to humans. Other coincidences,however, are welcome: We are often happy about small ones. So the sudden reappearanceof the sun, after we had packed the picnic quickly and could now unpack it againafter all. We marvel smilingly at the bigger one, such as the coincidence that made itpossible for me to get to know my life partner for the first time, with whom I live happilytogether. We shake our heads in joyful disbelief that our favorite soccer club wasable to equalize in the very last second, and that only because an opposing defender’s legby chance sent the ball careening in the right direction. The development of stock pricesis unpredictable, and this is by far not the only thing that is unpredictable in economiclife. Inventions and discoveries are very often, if not predominantly, the result of chance,coincidence and accidents.With this book, I would like to motivate you to subject your previous world view toa critical examination in part: Is everything really in equilibrium, should the climate, theecosystem, our economy really be in equilibrium at best? I do not expect you to changeor even overturn your previous ideas; but I would like to encourage you to allow forsome unusual thoughts and to think them through calmly. Because only in this way wewill be able not only to answer the question of how chance, coincidence and accidentscome into our world. We will understand the world as a whole a little better.