Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity (including the choice of inaction) will lead to a loss (an undesirable outcome). The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists (or existed). Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks". Almost any human endeavor carries some risk, but some are much more risky than others.(Exposure to) the possibility of loss, injury, or other adverse or unwelcome circumstance; a chance or situation involving such a possibility. The term was used in highly specific contexts, above all sea trade and its ensuing legal problems of loss and damage. The terminology of risk took ground, it replaced the older notion that thought "in terms of good and bad fortune."Perhaps, this was simply a loss of plausibility of the old rhetoric's of Fortuna as an allegorical figure of religious content and of prudentia as a (noble) virtue in the emerging commercial society. Scenario matured during Cold War confrontations between major powers, notably the United States and the Soviet Union. It became widespread in insurance circles when major oil tanker disasters forced a more comprehensive foresight. The scientific approach to risk entered finance with the advent of the capital asset pricing model and became increasingly important when financial derivatives proliferated. The power of personal computing allowed for widespread data collection and numbers crunching.