Chance - Softcover

Amir D. Aczel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843440253 ISBN 13: 9781843440253

Publisher: High Stakes Publishing, 2006

Synopsis

Hard to find

About this title

About the Author:

Amir D. Aczel earned both his BA in mathematics and Master of Science degree from the University of Oregon. Among many other books, he is the author of Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics; The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity; and Fermat's Last Theorem: Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem, which was translated into fifteen languages. He is an internationnaly known mathematician and lives in Boston.

From Publishers Weekly:

The baffling, for some, subject of chance and luck is demystified in this sketchy but engaging treatise. Mathematician Aczel (Fermat's Last Theorem) includes some equations, but mostly sticks to grade-school arithmetic and a few easy story problems in explicating the mathematics of probability. He untangles a number of urgent conundrums, including why buses always seem to run late, why any group of 31 people will include two with the same birthday and why random walks can model the stock market. The book abounds in counterintuitive life lessons. You shouldn't gamble, he says, but if you do then you are better off, probability-wise, if you blow your whole wad on a single spin of the roulette wheel than if you parcel it out in smaller bets. And the lovelorn can take comfort in knowing that, if you just keep dating, the odds are surprisingly good that your soul mate will turn up. Indeed, "[y]ou will maximize your probability of finding the best spouse if you date thirty-seven percent of the available candidates in your life, and then choose to stay with the next candidate who is better than all previous ones." Aczel's treatments of some topics, like game theory, are so perfunctory as to barely register, but his light touch generally makes probability come alive.
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About this edition

• Publisher: High Stakes Publishing
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1843440253
• ISBN 13: 9781843440253
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 161