The Pleasures of Probability

by Richard Isaac

The ideas of probability are all around us. Lotteries, casino gambling, the al­ most non-stop polling which seems to mold public policy more and more­ these are a few of the areas where principles of probability impinge in a direct way on the lives and fortunes of the general public. At a more re­ moved level there is modern science which uses probability and its offshoots like statistics and the theory of random processes to build mathematical descriptions of the real world. In fact, twentieth-century physics, in embrac­ ing quantum mechanics, has a world view that is at its core probabilistic in nature, contrary to the deterministic one of classical physics. In addition to all this muscular evidence of the importance of probability ideas it should also be said that probability can be lots of fun. It is a subject where you can start thinking about amusing, interesting, and often difficult problems with very little mathematical background. In this book, I wanted to introduce a reader with at least a fairly decent mathematical background in elementary algebra to this world of probabil­ ity, to the way of thinking typical of probability, and the kinds of problems to which probability can be applied. I have used examples from a wide variety of fields to motivate the discussion of concepts.

Genres: Mathematics

259 pages, Hardcover

First published February 24, 1995

Reviews

[Yuanyuan Mao · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a child, I have always been impressed by the beauty of science, the beauty that lies in simple yet powerful laws, and rigorous theoretical frameworks deduced from straightforward ideas. After I started working as a scientific researcher, the motivation for me to do science, however, gradually disappeared. I am so overwhelmed by all the lemmas, propositions, and theorems. I started to question the meaning of academic works. As a PhD in probability theory and statistics, I knew most content of this book already, but I still enjoyed reading this small book. It brings me back to my childhood, when I started to appreciate mathematics and science. It has done a good job, as claimed in the title, to bring the pleasures of probability to the readers. Five stars.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read since I finished up a stats course last term (I got to skip most of the math explanations). It was an interesting look at probability and I think it would be a good starter book for those who aren't very well-versed in math. I certainly wish I'd found this when I started learning Probability myself as the examples were so thoroughly explained in essentially layman's terms and everything was very easy to understand.

Also with an example entirely about poisson distribution of chocolate chips in the baking of cookies, how can you go wrong? :P

[Hà Bùi · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best probability book I've read cover to cover. I think this book should be the textbook for introduction courses.