India, June 30 -- For most of human history, one's life trajectory was determined right at birth. If you were born in a royal family, you led an opulent life. If you were born in a serf's family, you led a life of misery. The industrial revolution and the spread of democracy helped create a more dynamic world. In the modern era, a cab driver's daughter can dream about becoming a billionaire. A billionaire's son can have nightmares about going bankrupt one day.

Yet, even in the modern world, the distribution of wealth and power is far more unequal than the distribution of talent. A 2018 research paper by the Italian physicists A Pluchino and A Rapisarda and the economist AE Biondo shows how randomness (or luck) could help explain this puz...