The Pleasures of Probability (Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics) - Hardcover

Isaac, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038794415X ISBN 13: 9780387944159

Publisher: Springer, 1995

Synopsis

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 038794415X
• ISBN 13: 9780387944159
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 259