Black swan

A friend of Ernest’s has a rare disease.

...

Ernest: One in a million chance. And Wolfgang gets it.

Frank: Black swan.

Ernest: Huh?

Frank: Something that just comes out of the blue. A random occurrence. Swans were always white until they found black ones in Australia.

Ernest: Never expected. No warning.

Frank: Exactly. Chaos theory, Fractal theory. Now Taleb’s black swan theory. Riemke describes the path of her life as totally haphazard. The good things and the bad things are unpredicted. The impact of the improbable and unforeseen.

...

Yevgenia Krasnova

Bill has only just begun Taleb’s Black Swan and Ray disabuses him of one of his assumptions.

...

Bill: You’ve read the Black Swan?

Ray: I have.

Bill: Just begun it but I particularly like the story of this woman neuroscientist who wrote a book but no publisher would touch it, it didn’t seem to be either fact or fiction, so she put it on the Internet and there a publisher found it and he published it and before long her book was out in 40 languages. Just shows, the “experts” are not always right. Great story!

Ray: Great story, indeed. I suspect you have only read up to the chapter on Yevgenia.

Bill: That’s right. How did you know?

Ray: If you turn the page, you’ll find a footnote. “To those readers who Googled Yevgenia Krasnova, I am sorry to say that she is (officially) a fictional character."

...