A First Course in Probability

Ross, Sheldon

ISBN 10: 0024038504 / ISBN 13: 9780024038500

Published by Macmillan, 1988

About this Item

A well-cared-for item that has seen limited use but remains in great condition. The item is complete, unmarked, and undamaged, but may show some limited signs of wear. Item works perfectly. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine is undamaged. Seller Inventory # 4BQGBJ01286G_ns

Bibliographic Details

Title: A First Course in Probability

Publisher: Macmillan

Publication Date: 1988

Binding: hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: 3rd Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

First all, everyone wishing to learn probability comes from different background, math level, and motivation. There is no book that suits all. Recently I needed to know something about moment generating functions. With all my advanced engineering background though, I find it difficult to get into probability. So I bought the following supposedly introductory texts: Ross, DeGroot, Stirzaker, Bersekas & Tsitsiklis. To me, Ross seems like a review lesson to cram for finals; it's choke full of examples but fairly spare in exposition. DeGroot is the opposite, long on descriptions but short on examples; by the time it finishes describing the problem, you have forgotten how to solve it. Probability is set up more as a prelude to statistics in the second half of the book. Stirzaker calls his book "elementary" the way Sherlock Holmes dismissed a case after slogging all night through the English bogs. It is more for the well-drilled boys from elite British "public" (private actually) schools. Bersekas comes closest to what I look for in a text, straightforward in prose with a judicious selection of examples to explain theory. For beginners, the best approach I found, in the end, was to go the local community college and buy the text used for Finite Math. Usually, there are 3 to 4 chapters that introduce probability. Such a text is aimed an audience from wider academic and language backgrounds, as community colleges are mandated to do.