WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.140 All right. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we're 00:00:02.140 --> 00:00:05.540 running a pretty high fidelity simulation of 00:00:05.540 --> 00:00:07.980 an extraordinary individual. An absolutely singular 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:10.580 mind. We're talking about Nimrod Allen III, but 00:00:10.580 --> 00:00:12.599 he was known as Pudge. And Pudge was operating 00:00:12.599 --> 00:00:15.919 in the, let's say, informal golf wagering markets, 00:00:16.059 --> 00:00:18.859 high stakes stuff back in 1993, Milwaukee. Right. 00:00:18.920 --> 00:00:21.019 And the sources all identify him as an autistic 00:00:21.019 --> 00:00:25.160 savant. But his... His anomaly goes way deeper 00:00:25.160 --> 00:00:28.300 than just, you know, raw computation. OK, let's 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:31.399 unpack this then, because for Pudge, the entire 00:00:31.399 --> 00:00:33.840 world, a golf ball's flight, a conversation, 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:36.700 a bet, it's all translated into the mathematics 00:00:36.700 --> 00:00:39.439 of fluid dynamics. Exactly. He doesn't perceive 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:42.899 discrete objects the way we do. He sees a continuous 00:00:42.899 --> 00:00:46.109 flowing field. Everything is a solution to a 00:00:46.109 --> 00:00:48.229 partial differential equation. So this isn't 00:00:48.229 --> 00:00:50.729 just a quirky metaphor. This is his literal operating 00:00:50.729 --> 00:00:53.530 system. The source material calls it veridical 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.609 mapping. It is. It's a one -to -one translation. 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:58.630 He takes an abstract concept like risk, and for 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:00.789 him, it just is a physical property. So risk 00:01:00.789 --> 00:01:04.010 becomes what? Viscosity. The higher the stakes, 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.769 the thicker the fluid in his model. It's harder 00:01:06.769 --> 00:01:09.370 to move. The action is slower, more deliberate. 00:01:09.590 --> 00:01:12.030 And what about luck? Or, you know, just random 00:01:12.030 --> 00:01:15.359 variance? That's turbulence. Pure chaotic turbulence. 00:01:15.819 --> 00:01:18.980 So when a golfer steps up to the ball, Pudge 00:01:18.980 --> 00:01:22.120 sees a boundary condition. He's solving for the 00:01:22.120 --> 00:01:24.959 conservation of mass and momentum in his system 00:01:24.959 --> 00:01:28.079 that includes the air, the grass, and the player's 00:01:28.079 --> 00:01:31.159 entire nervous system. Wow. Okay, so here's the 00:01:31.159 --> 00:01:33.500 part that really stood out to me. He gets his 00:01:33.500 --> 00:01:35.599 predictive power because he specifically bets 00:01:35.599 --> 00:01:38.060 on the error. Yes. He applies what's called Reynolds 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:41.379 decomposition. He completely ignores the intended 00:01:41.379 --> 00:01:43.450 shot, the average outcome. He's looking for the 00:01:43.450 --> 00:01:46.329 fluctuation, the little twitch. That's it. The 00:01:46.329 --> 00:01:48.189 nervousness, the shaky hands, the tight jaw. 00:01:48.790 --> 00:01:51.730 In physics, that fluctuation generates what's 00:01:51.730 --> 00:01:54.030 called the Reynolds stress tensor. And if that 00:01:54.030 --> 00:01:56.609 stress is high? If the turbulent intensity is 00:01:56.609 --> 00:01:58.629 high, he knows the flow is about to separate. 00:01:59.010 --> 00:02:01.090 In golf terms, that means a total breakdown. 00:02:01.409 --> 00:02:04.230 A hook, a slice, he immediately shorts the player. 00:02:04.370 --> 00:02:06.650 He's betting against their internal state. not 00:02:06.650 --> 00:02:09.469 their skill. So where does he get all this data? 00:02:09.590 --> 00:02:11.750 I mean, this is where the 1993 Milwaukee setting 00:02:11.750 --> 00:02:14.469 becomes so critical, right? The city is his computational 00:02:14.469 --> 00:02:17.889 mesh. It is. The inputs are fascinating. Take 00:02:17.889 --> 00:02:21.030 the local dialect, the term bubbler, the local 00:02:21.030 --> 00:02:23.650 word for a drinking fountain or pudge. That's 00:02:23.650 --> 00:02:26.389 not just a word. It's processed as a point source 00:02:26.389 --> 00:02:29.250 in potential flow theory, a singularity where 00:02:29.250 --> 00:02:32.849 fluid, either water or, you know, gossip enters 00:02:32.849 --> 00:02:35.409 the domain. And what about the money, the time 00:02:35.409 --> 00:02:38.180 machine? The ATM. A pressure injection note. 00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:40.900 Simple as that. It instantly increases the financial 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:43.139 pressure, the P variable, in his equations. Even 00:02:43.139 --> 00:02:45.319 the music of the time was a variable for him. 00:02:45.460 --> 00:02:47.620 It set the temporal clock. Arrested developments 00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:50.939 laid back hip hop. That's laminar flow. Calm, 00:02:51.020 --> 00:02:53.960 predictable play. But if the vibe shifts to, 00:02:54.060 --> 00:02:57.139 say, Kali Tribe's intense style. Turbulent jet 00:02:57.139 --> 00:03:00.460 flow. Exactly. High velocity, heated escalation. 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:02.900 He knows things are about to get chaotic. Which 00:03:02.900 --> 00:03:06.020 brings us to this case study. The Venturi Deception. 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:08.680 A classic. It involves the Hampton Avenue Bridge, 00:03:08.939 --> 00:03:11.560 which Pudge modeled as a perfect Venturi choke 00:03:11.560 --> 00:03:14.539 point, a wind funnel. The situation was a wolf 00:03:14.539 --> 00:03:18.159 game during the big storm of 93. Player B is 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:21.009 in trouble. He needs a miracle. And Pudge tells 00:03:21.009 --> 00:03:24.069 him to go lone wolf, to bet on himself against 00:03:24.069 --> 00:03:26.969 everyone else, and to aim deliberately left, 00:03:27.069 --> 00:03:28.990 straight at the bridge. But wait, that makes 00:03:28.990 --> 00:03:31.129 no sense. The Venturi effect would accelerate 00:03:31.129 --> 00:03:33.569 the wind there. Aiming into it should have made 00:03:33.569 --> 00:03:36.110 a slice catastrophically worse. It should have. 00:03:36.530 --> 00:03:39.229 Physically, it was a lie. But Pudge wasn't betting 00:03:39.229 --> 00:03:41.229 on the physics of the wind. He was betting on 00:03:41.229 --> 00:03:44.250 the player's psychology. Precisely. He knew the 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:46.590 player would see the bridge, feel the wind, and 00:03:46.590 --> 00:03:49.419 panic. He would overcompensate. Pudge calculated 00:03:49.419 --> 00:03:53.379 the exact vector of that nervous manual overcompensation. 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:55.659 And it perfectly canceled out the win vector. 00:03:55.860 --> 00:03:57.780 It was a perfect vector cancellation. The ball 00:03:57.780 --> 00:04:00.560 flew straight. He used human error as the winning 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:02.620 mechanism. So when you pull it all back, what 00:04:02.620 --> 00:04:04.699 was he actually doing here? This wasn't just 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:07.500 about winning bets. No, not at all. In a way, 00:04:07.560 --> 00:04:10.580 Pudge was the necessary viscous damping for that 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:13.639 entire illegal economy. He was the stabilizing 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:15.560 force preventing it from descending into pure 00:04:15.560 --> 00:04:18.579 chaos. He was ensuring the conservation of mass. 00:04:18.759 --> 00:04:21.399 Money was just transferred, not magically created 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:24.120 or destroyed. Which leaves us with one really 00:04:24.120 --> 00:04:26.560 provocative question from the source material. 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:31.220 Go on. In 1993, Milwaukee had that massive cryptosporidium 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:35.300 water contamination event, a profound real -world 00:04:35.300 --> 00:04:37.639 change in the physical fluid quality of the city. 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:40.500 So if his models are based on the city's actual 00:04:40.500 --> 00:04:44.389 fluid environment, How did a literal contamination 00:04:44.389 --> 00:04:47.310 of the city's water affect his metaphorical fluid 00:04:47.310 --> 00:04:50.189 models of its economy? That's the question. Something 00:04:50.189 --> 00:04:52.129 for you to mull over until our next deep dive.