The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
Language: English
Published by Scientific American, New York, 2014
- First Edition
- Hardcover
- Used

Seller: Sessions Book Sales, Birmingham, AL, U.S.A.Sessions Book Sales
AbeBooks seller since June 1, 1999
Condition: Used - Very good
US$ 9.95
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Add to basketItem description from seller
269 pages. Ex-library.
Seller Inventory # 77905
- Title
- The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
- Author
- Hand, David J.
- Publisher
- Scientific American, New York
- Publication year
- 2014
- Condition
- Very Good
- Dust jacket
- Very Good
- Book Type
- Improbability
- Binding
- Hard Cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0374175349
- ISBN 13
- 9780374175344
- Edition
- 1st Ed., 1st Printing.
In The Improbability Principle, the renowned statistician David J. Hand argues that extraordinarily rare events are anything but. In fact, they're commonplace. Not only that, we should all expect to experience a miracle roughly once every month.
But Hand is no believer in superstitions, prophecies, or the paranormal. His definition of "miracle" is thoroughly rational. No mystical or supernatural explanation is necessary to understand why someone is lucky enough to win the lottery twice, or is destined to be hit by lightning three times and still survive. All we need, Hand argues, is a firm grounding in a powerful set of laws: the laws of inevitability, of truly large numbers, of selection, of the probability lever, and of near enough.
Together, these constitute Hand's groundbreaking Improbability Principle. And together, they explain why we should not be so surprised to bump into a friend in a foreign country, or to come across the same unfamiliar word four times in one day. Hand wrestles with seemingly less explicable questions as well: what the Bible and Shakespeare have in common, why financial crashes are par for the course, and why lightning does strike the same place (and the same person) twice. Along the way, he teaches us how to use the Improbability Principle in our own lives―including how to cash in at a casino and how to recognize when a medicine is truly effective.
An irresistible adventure into the laws behind "chance" moments and a trusty guide for understanding the world and universe we live in, The Improbability Principle will transform how you think about serendipity and luck, whether it's in the world of business and finance or you're merely sitting in your backyard, tossing a ball into the air and wondering where it will land.
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Sessions Book Sales
Birmingham, AL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since June 1, 1999
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Located in the Greater Birmingham area of central Alabama, our store offers for sale via mail order and through the internet, almost entirely to customers found through Internet contacts, thousands of books and other media of both popular and academic research interest. Focusing primarily on non-fiction books, we have a high concentration of items in such subjects as political science, philosophy, economics, religion and theology, science, literature and literary criticism, Alabama and Southern history,the American Civil War, Military History and War, Americana and many more such areas. We have many items pertaining to ideology, whether it be conservatism, libertarianism, free market economics, socialism, or communism, including many congressional reports on communist activities. We also have quite a few reference books, especially bibliographies.…
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