Probability: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #310

by John Haigh

Making good decisions under conditions of uncertainty requires a sound appreciation of the way random chance works. It requires, in short, an understanding of probability. In this Very Short Introduction, John Haigh introduces the ideas of probability--and the different philosophical approaches to probability--and gives a brief account of the history of development of probability theory, from Galileo and Pascal to Bayes, Laplace, Poisson, and Markov. He describes the basic probability distributions and discusses a wide range of applications in science, economics, and a variety of other contexts such as games and betting. He concludes with an intriguing discussion of coincidences and some curious paradoxes.

Genres: Mathematics, Nonfiction, Science

144 pages, Paperback

First published April 26, 2012

Reviews

[PolicemanPrawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This layman’s introduction to probability was okay. It covers the usual topics – relative frequency approach, subjective probability, history of probability, probability distributions, probability applications – with as little maths as possible. The second half, on applications, covers many topics and isn’t particularly well-written. The author does, to his great credit, describe the Poisson model for football. While the book wasn’t bad, I personally don’t see the benefits of it over a standard textbook on probability, the basics of which are easy enough to understand.

[Abhijeet Jain · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting something better!

Being an engineering student I always loved probability! Sometimes it's so intuitive while many times the result seem totally absurd!

The book started okish, and kept on degrading until I stopped reading it! I was waiting to read something which I never thought about, but the book turned out very different, It seems as if author wrote to just for the sake of writing it.

I would be reading this book soon again because I feel that maybe I didn't engage with the book better. And would update the review after it again. Till then my review stands at 2.5 stars :)

You can read favourite excerpts from the books here: https://www.instagram.com/book_snippets/

Happy reading!

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason, I had expected this to be a little deeper and more related to everyday life. The probability of winning the lottery, getting hit by a bus, eaten by sharks, hit by lightning etc... Not about how to calculate the amount of sixes you're likely to get from rolling a fair die thousands of times. Additionally, this would be too shallow of a book for any kind of mathematician or engineer (hence the Very Short Introduction) so I'm not really sure who this book is for.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised to feel disappointment after reading a short book on mathematical probability hahaha

[Kayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

“The better you are at assessing probabilities when matters are uncertain, the more likely you are to be happy with the decisions you make” pg.9

This is definitely an introduction for somebody NOT interested in more than a very surface level understanding. He gives no equations, no mathematical terms really except the necessary ones such as the names of definitions. It for sure introduces the distributions but not much else. Some of the explanations for things such as central limit theorem could’ve been done much better as well. Unnecessary images.

[Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I slightly disliked this author when outside of his area of expertise, but within it, he did well. Clear and thorough explanations made sufficiently interesting. Well organized.

[Ionarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good short introduction. Exactly what it says on the tin: accessible, easy-to-read, cruising through various aspects of probability in a short amount of space. It also has the surprise advantage of giving you some small bits of life advice.

I chose this because I am well aware that within maths, probability is my main weak point. This book provided an excellent theoretical (and in some places, practical) starting point, and gave me an idea of what I should learn to improve my grasp of probability. Being in straightforward written format, it has the added advantage of not getting boring, endlessly frustrating or overly technical, like a lot of maths courses (or long pages of unexplained sums.)

[Tiago Irineu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of the core elements of probability theory

I liked about this book that the author first laid the core elements of probability theory, and then showed a bunch of examples of their application. As it is really and introductory book, there was no math involved.

I must say that some examples were uninteresting to me, but I think that it's a question of taste. It could use some extra pages for going further in some topics, but this was beyond the scope of the book.

[Richard McIsaac · Rating 3 out of 5]

This introduction is one of words and very little mathematics. A few of the examples are not easy to follow without a basic grasp of the underlying maths. I would have enjoyed more balance between the two approaches.

[J]

Amazingly has not one bit of math. This one was not of much practical help -- in the way the stats one was -- but it nevertheless made a compelling case for formalized probabilities' importance in many aspects of the modern world.

[Duchessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent introduction, overly sparse. Had to do supplemental reading to understand more advanced topics. Also lacking any equations or exact maths.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction to probability - keep a pen and paper with you to work through some of his examples

[Brad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!

I am tempted to buy this whole series (A Very Short Introduction)

B. Grizenko

[Bojan Tunguz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probability is a funny beast. In its most rigorous and formal form it is one of the more interesting subfields of mathematics. And yet, unlike much else of mathematics, it is very familiar subject that has entered much of popular and colloquial usage. We talk casually and without much thinking of the chance of rain tomorrow, probability of winning the lottery, and even probabilities of various outcomes in our everyday private lives (passing the test, getting a new job, finding a girlfriend). It is fair to say that the concept of probability taps into some of our deep-seated and hard-wired intuitions about how the world works. Nonetheless, there are certain well-known problems in probability that seem to defy rationality and come across as paradoxical (such as the Monty Hall problem.)

The aim of this book is to present probability in as accessible manner as possible. The book covers probability’s historical development, explains away certain probability paradoxes, aims to teach you how to think about the probability problems, and gives an overview of the applications of probability in various fields. It gives a very approachable introduction to the subject, and it requires almost no math except some simple mathematical operations that everyone is familiar with. It also has a few interesting problems interspersed throughout the text, but you should not be deterred from reading this material if math problem solving is not your forte. (Plus, all the problems are provided with detailed solutions in the back of the book.) The book is very nicely written and it was a pleasure to read.

One of the things that I like the best about this book is that for the most part it does not approach various probability problems as primarily math problems, but rather as problems of reasoning. The book goes a long way in showing that probability, like many other areas of mathematics, is at the bottom of it just applied common sense. Yes, you still have to use the numbers in order to calculate the actual probabilities, but arriving at the exact numbers requires just consistent application of simple reasoning steps.

Two other related books that you may find interesting are Statistics: A Very Short Introduction and Risk: A Very Short Introduction.

A great and instructive read. Highly recommend it.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my second book in the Very Short Introduction series. The Mathematics introduction set the bar pretty high, which contributed to my disappointment with this one. Probability starts off strong by explaining different "views" of probably and clarifying some of the terms. This part was actually quite interesting and helpful. After the first chapter it begins a steady descent into a world ever less clear and familiar. The book is light on math, which is probably a relief for most readers, but it still moves to quickly over sections I just couldn't follow. I don't think more equations or more diagrams would have helped, but perhaps better examples and a slower pace.

[Alejandro Shirvani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice concise introduction to the subject: covers the difference between objective and subjective approches to probability, gives a quick run down the nuts and bolts of addition and multiplication laws and then takes the reader through a historical run down of the main ideas in probability, outlining things like the binomial, exponential and poisson distributions.

The book also flags up a number of common fallacies and has a number of real world applications which illustrate how the probability calculations work.

[Napalmlolita · Rating 2 out of 5]

4 stars until the very end, when counter-intuitive, and, as far as I've been able to research, false, statements about probability are stated but not even attempted to be explained, like that series of three of coin tosses aren't supposedly all equally likely to occur. Still this book is way better than the related 'Statistics: A Very Short Introduction' which leaves all the details out and consequently is not informative at all.

[Schrodingers Woofer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great introductory text. Deciding what to include and what to skip over is not a task I would been able to complete ... Not without an algorithm anyway! The author has done a great job and whether as an introduction to the subject, a reminder of the key principles or scratching an itch to find out what this subject might be about - this is a good book.

[Mills College Library]

519.2 H1497 2012

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, mostly for bibliography for beginners

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title suggests, good for an overview of probability studies.

[Duhart Vader · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting book but as the rest of the series I don't think it's a good introduction. It's better if one's already familiarised with the material.

[Venkatesh-Prasad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provides a decent non-mathy basic introduction to probability. This approach could have worked well if the author introduced and elaborated all of the used terms/concepts with pictures. However, this is not the case in this book. While the book has good examples, there are no calculations supporting the conclusions in these examples. This is compounded by terseness of exposition and lack of pictures (e.g., venn diagrams).