An entertaining introduction to one of the most universally relevant and most widely misunderstood branches of mathematics.
Are you a betting person? Here’s how to calculate the odds.
Mathematician Aczel (Pendulum, 2003, etc.) surveys probability theory, using no math more complex than algebra. He defines probability, then devotes each short chapter to explaining how it works in some concrete instance, such as the odds of drawing a spade from a deck of cards. Building from simpler to more complex examples, the author offers insights into phenomena that seem counterintuitive to many nonmathematicians, such as the “gambler’s ruin,” a proof that while the so-called law of averages will in the long run produce results that fit the predictions of simplistic mathematics, there is no guarantee that they will do so in the short run. In one long trial of coin flips, the number of heads stayed above the number of tails for nearly three thousand turns; in the very long run, it did even out, but gamblers relying on a 50-50 split would have been bankrupted long before the law of averages came to their rescue. Another counterintuitive result is the likelihood that in a group of 23 people, 2 will share a birthday; Aczel shows how to calculate it. Other startling coincidences, like a chance acquaintance turning out to be your wife’s high-school classmate, depend on an extended web of interests and relationships that give all of us more in common than we realize. The author even manages to tie something as apparently esoteric as Baye’s Theorem to everyday discourse by way of the “Monty Hall Problem,” based on the three doors contestants had to choose among on Let’s Make a Deal. A set of problems at the end lets readers test their understanding, and an appendix applies Aczel’s insights to common gambling games.
An entertaining introduction to one of the most universally relevant and most widely misunderstood branches of mathematics.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-56858-316-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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