Items related to The Perfect Bet: How Science and Maths are Taking the...
[An] enjoyable... paean to human ingenuity, and a Robin Hood tale of wealth redistribution. (Daily Telegraph)
This book is full of magic. It's brimming with clever people and clever ideas... The links between betting and science run deep and wide, allowing Kucharski to cover some thrilling intellectual territory. (New Scientist)
Terrific: beautifully written, solidly researched and full of surprises (New York Times Numberplay blog)
Elegant and amusing ... anyone planning to enter a casino or place an online bet would be advised to keep this book handy (Wall Street Journal)
Great stories of how smart people have used maths, statistics and science to try and beat the odds - legally'. (David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge)
A wild ride through the history, psychology, mathematics, and technology of gaming - a remarkable look behind the curtain of what most people think is intuitive, but isn't (Paul Offit, author of Bad Faith)
With an entertaining writing style, Adam Kucharski guides us through the history and state of the art of The Perfect Bet showing us how mathematics and computers are used to come up with optimal ways to gamble, play games, bluff, and invest our money. Extremely well-written and carefully researched. I highly recommend it. (Arthur Benjamin, author of The Magic of Maths)
A lucid yet sophisticated look at the mathematics of probability as it's played out on gaming tables, arenas, and fields... Gamblers and math buffs alike will enjoy it for its smart approach to real-world problems. ( Kirkus Reviews) ast-moving, exciting, psychologically acute, warmly sceptical (Bryan Appleyard Sunday Times)
Vastly engaging ... a tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read. (Natalie Haynes Observer)
Sustaining the energy that such a topic demands for more than 600 pages, while providing a coherent answer to the question of why Rome expanded so spectacularly, is hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly ... full of insights and delights ... SPQR is consistently enlivened by Beard's eye for detail and her excellent sense of humour. (Sunday Times)
Masterful ... This is exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life (Economist)
Ground-breaking ... invigorating ... revolutionary ... a whole new approach to ancient history (Thomas Hodgkinson Spectator)
This book is a treasure, both as a fascinating read in itself and as a fine work of reference to correct our lazy misconceptions about an ancient world that still has much to instruct us today (Herald)
An irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention (FT)
This book is full of magic. It's brimming with clever people and clever ideas... The links between betting and science run deep and wide, allowing Kucharski to cover some thrilling intellectual territory. (New Scientist)
Terrific: beautifully written, solidly researched and full of surprises (New York Times Numberplay blog)
Elegant and amusing ... anyone planning to enter a casino or place an online bet would be advised to keep this book handy (Wall Street Journal)
Great stories of how smart people have used maths, statistics and science to try and beat the odds - legally'. (David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge)
A wild ride through the history, psychology, mathematics, and technology of gaming - a remarkable look behind the curtain of what most people think is intuitive, but isn't (Paul Offit, author of Bad Faith)
With an entertaining writing style, Adam Kucharski guides us through the history and state of the art of The Perfect Bet showing us how mathematics and computers are used to come up with optimal ways to gamble, play games, bluff, and invest our money. Extremely well-written and carefully researched. I highly recommend it. (Arthur Benjamin, author of The Magic of Maths)
A lucid yet sophisticated look at the mathematics of probability as it's played out on gaming tables, arenas, and fields... Gamblers and math buffs alike will enjoy it for its smart approach to real-world problems. ( Kirkus Reviews) ast-moving, exciting, psychologically acute, warmly sceptical (Bryan Appleyard Sunday Times)
Vastly engaging ... a tremendously enjoyable and scholarly read. (Natalie Haynes Observer)
Sustaining the energy that such a topic demands for more than 600 pages, while providing a coherent answer to the question of why Rome expanded so spectacularly, is hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly ... full of insights and delights ... SPQR is consistently enlivened by Beard's eye for detail and her excellent sense of humour. (Sunday Times)
Masterful ... This is exemplary popular history, engaging but never dumbed down, providing both the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life (Economist)
Ground-breaking ... invigorating ... revolutionary ... a whole new approach to ancient history (Thomas Hodgkinson Spectator)
This book is a treasure, both as a fascinating read in itself and as a fine work of reference to correct our lazy misconceptions about an ancient world that still has much to instruct us today (Herald)
Praise for Mary Beard:
'She's pulled off that rare trick of becoming a don with a high media profile who hasn't sold out, who is absolutely respected by the academy for her scholarship ... what she says is always powerful and interesting
An irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention (FT)
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Back Cover:
There is one thing about gambling that everyone knows: the house always wins. Lotteries are set up to guarantee profits, to the state. A craps game is a sure thing, but only if you own the table. Sometimes, however, everyone is wrong. After all, the reason that casinos ban card counters is that counting cards works. Indeed, for the past 500 years, gamblersled by mathematicians and scientistshave been trying to figure out how to turn the tables on the house and pull the rug out from under Lady Luck.
In "The Perfect Bet," mathematician and award-winning writer Adam Kucharski tells the astonishing story of how the experts have done it, revolutionizing mathematics and science in the process. From Galileo to Alan Turing, betting has been scientists playground for ideas: dice games in sixteenth-century bars gave birth to the theory of probability, and poker to game theory (mathematician John von Neumann wanted to improve his game) and to much of artificial intelligence. Kucharski gives us a collection of rogues, geniuses, and mavericks who are equally at home in a casino in Monte Carlo as investigating how to build an atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project. He features the mathematician who flipped a coin 25,000 times to see if it was fair; the college kids who gamed the Massachusetts lottery to yield millions of dollars in profit; and the horse-betting syndicates of Hong Kong s Happy Valley, who turned a wager on ponies into a multi-billion-dollar industry.
With mathematical rigor and narrative flair, Adam Kucharski reveals the tangled history of betting and science. The house can seem unbeatable. In this book, Kucharski shows us just why it isn t. Even better, he shows us how the search for the perfect bet has been crucial in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and technological innovation."
About the Author:
There is one thing about gambling that everyone knows: the house always wins. Lotteries are set up to guarantee profits, to the state. A craps game is a sure thing, but only if you own the table. Sometimes, however, everyone is wrong. After all, the reason that casinos ban card counters is that counting cards works. Indeed, for the past 500 years, gamblersled by mathematicians and scientistshave been trying to figure out how to turn the tables on the house and pull the rug out from under Lady Luck.
In "The Perfect Bet," mathematician and award-winning writer Adam Kucharski tells the astonishing story of how the experts have done it, revolutionizing mathematics and science in the process. From Galileo to Alan Turing, betting has been scientists playground for ideas: dice games in sixteenth-century bars gave birth to the theory of probability, and poker to game theory (mathematician John von Neumann wanted to improve his game) and to much of artificial intelligence. Kucharski gives us a collection of rogues, geniuses, and mavericks who are equally at home in a casino in Monte Carlo as investigating how to build an atomic bomb for the Manhattan Project. He features the mathematician who flipped a coin 25,000 times to see if it was fair; the college kids who gamed the Massachusetts lottery to yield millions of dollars in profit; and the horse-betting syndicates of Hong Kong s Happy Valley, who turned a wager on ponies into a multi-billion-dollar industry.
With mathematical rigor and narrative flair, Adam Kucharski reveals the tangled history of betting and science. The house can seem unbeatable. In this book, Kucharski shows us just why it isn t. Even better, he shows us how the search for the perfect bet has been crucial in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and technological innovation."
Adam Kucharski is an assistant professor in mathematical modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and an award-winning science writer. He studied at the University of Warwick before completing a PhD in mathematics at the University of Cambridge. The winner of the 2012 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, Kucharski lives in London.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherProfile Books
- Publication date2016
- ISBN 10 1781255466
- ISBN 13 9781781255469
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages288
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 64.00
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
The Perfect Bet: How Science and Maths are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling
Published by
Profile Books
(2016)
ISBN 10: 1781255466
ISBN 13: 9781781255469
New
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks524694
Buy New
US$ 64.00
Convert currency