The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Author: Leonard Mlodinow | Language: English | ISBN:
B001NXK1XO | Format: PDF
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Description
With the born storyteller's command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe.
By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.
From the Trade Paperback edition.- File Size: 520 KB
- Print Length: 272 pages
- Publisher: Vintage (May 13, 2008)
- Sold by: Random House LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B001NXK1XO
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #52,478 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Mathematics > Chaos & Systems - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Mathematics > Chaos & Systems - #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Physics > Mathematical Physics
- #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Mathematics > Chaos & Systems - #5
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Mathematics > Chaos & Systems - #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Science > Physics > Mathematical Physics
Promising prologue "... when chance is involved, people's thought processes are often seriously flawed .... [this book] is about the principles that govern chance, the development of those ideas, and the way they play out in business, medicine, economics, sports, ..." but a disappointing book. The book consists of a range of topics already well covered in a dozen previous popular science style books: history of probability (Cardano, Pascal, Bernoulli, Laplace, de Moivre) and of demographic and economic data; statistical logic (Bayes rule and false positives/negatives; Galton and the regression fallacy, normal curve and measurement error, mistaking random variation as being caused); overstating predictability in business affairs (past success doesn't ensure future success) and perennials such as Monty Hall, the gambler's fallacy, and hot hands.
These topics are presented in a way that's easy to read -- historical stories, anecdotes and experiments, with almost no mathematics. So it's a perfectly acceptable read if you haven't seen any of this material before before, but it doesn't bring any novel content or viewpoint to the table. Other books are equally informative and well written but have more interesting individual focus and panache:
Dicing with Death: Chance, Risk and Health shows hows to add analysis to anecdote,
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