Name: Chances Are--
Rating: 3 (1 reviews)

Robert Kaplan

Ellen Kaplan

Michael Kaplan

A layperson's sojourn into the realm of probability evaluates statistical information for a wide variety of arenas from poker and politics to weather and war, and profiles men and women who use probability in creative and revelatory ways.

Adventures in Probability

Chances Are--

A compelling journey through history, mathematics, and philosophy, charting humanity’s struggle against randomness Our lives are played out in the arena of chance. However little we recognize it in our day-to-day existence, we are always riding the odds, seeking out certainty but settling—reluctantly—for likelihood, building our beliefs on the shadowy props of probability. Chances Are is the story of man’s millennia-long search for the tools to manage the recurrent but unpredictable—to help us prevent, or at least mitigate, the seemingly random blows of disaster, disease, and injustice. In these pages, we meet the brilliant individuals who developed the first abstract formulations of probability, as well as the intrepid visionaries who recognized their practical applications—from gamblers to military strategists to meteorologists to medical researchers, from blackjack to our own mortality.

Chances Are . . .

Jeremy Cote

I enjoyed the book. It was sometimes a little long, but most of the stories were good. I will say, though, that there were a few too many biblical references in a book on probability for my taste.

Chances Are-- Adventures in Probability

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