Applications of Markov Chains (2003) [pdf]

Applications of Markov Chains (2003) [pdf](langvillea.people.cofc.edu)

79 points by SlowOnTheUptake 5 years ago | 7 comments

asciimike 5 years ago |

Unfortunately they missed the greatest application of them all: https://kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com/

My favorite application of Markov chains is in the Metropolis Light Transport algorithm: https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/metro/metro.pdf

cosmojg 5 years ago |

For those interested in microeconomics, the Medallion Fund is probably the most profitable application of Markov chains to date (also the most profitable mutual fund to date). It was founded by renowned mathematician Jim Simons [0], building upon the Baum–Welch algorithm [1]. Very interesting stuff.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baum%E2%80%93Welch_algorithm

srean 5 years ago | |

Could you elaborate on how exactly a Markov chain used there. Baum Welch is for HMMs though, which are different from Markov chains, they can capture infinite history/memory.

leephillips 5 years ago |

Some context is usually welcome. This paper is:

Von Hilgers, P. and Langville, A.N., 2006, June. The five greatest applications of Markov chains. In Proceedings of the Markov Anniversary Meeting (pp. 155-158). Boston Press.

mar77i 5 years ago |

Personally, I always thought my Alice in Chains Markov chains were pretty funny.

https://git.mar77i.info/alice-in-markov-chains

For anyone trying to run it, the URL in the collect_lyrics.py script should be the band's page on AZLyrics...

justjonathan 5 years ago |

One of my favorite examples is Garkov, the auto generation of Garfield strips using Markov chains.

http://joshmillard.com/garkov/