Comments on: No black tulip bulbs, no black swans http://blogs.reuters.com/globalinvesting/2008/12/10/no-black-tulip-bulbs-no-black-swans/ Insights behind the investment headlines Tue, 21 May 2013 01:30:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: Ian Kemmish http://blogs.reuters.com/globalinvesting/2008/12/10/no-black-tulip-bulbs-no-black-swans/comment-page-1/#comment-973 Ian Kemmish Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:41:52 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/globalinvesting/?p=600#comment-973 To all mathematicians save one currently popular one, the phrase "black swan" has always meant the exact opposite of what it now means in the press. A black swan was a idle curiosity: something had no reason not to exist, and whose nonexistence could only be proved by exhaustive enumeration; conversely, the discovery that such did creatures did exist would not require any rule books to be thrown out, and would only appear to be a major scientific discovery to non-scientists. I believe the "black swan problem" is discussed in Russell's Principia. To all mathematicians save one currently popular one, the phrase “black swan” has always meant the exact opposite of what it now means in the press.

A black swan was a idle curiosity: something had no reason not to exist, and whose nonexistence could only be proved by exhaustive enumeration; conversely, the discovery that such did creatures did exist would not require any rule books to be thrown out, and would only appear to be a major scientific discovery to non-scientists.

I believe the “black swan problem” is discussed in Russell’s Principia.

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