The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.88 (663 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0374535000 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-05-13 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
His definition of "miracle" is thoroughly rational. Hand wrestles with seemingly less explicable questions as well: what the Bible and Shakespeare have in common, why financial crashes are par for the course, and why lightning does strike the same place (and the same person) twice. An irresistible adventure into the laws behind "chance" moments and a trusty guide for understanding the world and universe we live in, The Improbability Principle will transform how you think about serendipity and luck, whether it's in the world of business and finance or you're merely sitting in your backyard, tossing a ball into the air and wondering where it will land.. Along the way, he teaches us how to use the Improbability Principle in our own livesincluding how to cash in at a casino and how to recognize when a medicine is truly effective. No mystical or supernatural explanation is necessary to understand why someone is lucky enough to win the lottery twice, or is destined to be hit by lightning three times and still survive. In fact, they're commonplace. Hand argues that extraord
The principle hinges on the idea that seemingly improbable events, from the individual to the cosmic level, are commonplace due to several factors. Far from being disillusioning or removing the magic from these events, the elegant framework beneath marvelous events is something worth marveling at in itself. --Bridget Thoreson . A touch of levity goes a long way toward making the subject engaging. These events, while astounding, are nonetheless to be expected, as mathematics professor Hand capably explains in this well-plotted book. Unexpected financial meltdowns. As Hand shows, probabilities are also about people—what we view as remarkable and why. Hand notes the counterintuitive nature of certain aspects of probability, as well as the history of how understanding in the field has developed. Lightning striking the same
Dull as it gets I've read a lot of books on statistics, both texts for work and more casual books for entertainment value. This is among the worst that I have read.The examples are dull, recycled, and mostly uninteresting. The concepts seem too basic for the length of the book. And in the end it just is not interesting. Pass on this one.When I read one star reviews, I often wish the reviewers would tell me what they did enjoy, so that I could calibrate their review and, potentially, so that I could find something better. So here I'll do that. Here are two books of similar nature, both of which are far better than The Improbability Prin. "Do You Gamble? This Book is for You." according to Frank Scoblete author of Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. You are at the craps table and the 12 rolls four times in a row. The odds of that happening are immense. At blackjack, two people come to the table at the same time and both get blackjacks --- back to back. After that you watch their play and they are not advantage players. They don’t even know basic strategy. A guy hits two inside numbers in a row at roulette. Then he bets the outside red and black and wins six in a row!The same woman wins two lotteries in New Jersey. Two people, a father and a son, have train accidents on the same day in two separate years. Someone is hit by lightning not twice but three times. . Another five-star review In the last year, I've read four or five books on probability. This one is the best of the lot. It's clear, entertaining, and easy to understand.People long for miracles. Everywhere you look there are charlatans ready to sell you a lottery ticket or a hot new stock and clean out your bank account. Even if no financial harm is involved, a belief in miracles and superstition can encourage an attitude of fatalism and passivity, diverting attention from real solutions to pressing problems.This book is the antidote to that kind of ignorance and passivity. It should be required reading in every high school. Five stars.
He is the author of seven books, including The Information Generation: How Data Rules Our World and Statistics: A Very Short Introduction, and has published more than three hundred scientific papers. David J. Hand is an emeritus professor of mathematics and a senior research investigator at Imperial College London. . Hand lives in London, England. He is the former president of the Royal Statistical Society and the chief scientific adviser to Winton Capital Manag