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Author: Deborah J. Bennett Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674020771 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
From the ancients' first readings of the innards of birds to your neighbor's last bout with the state lottery, humankind has put itself into the hands of chance. Today life itself may be at stake when probability comes into play--in the chance of a false negative in a medical test, in the reliability of DNA findings as legal evidence, or in the likelihood of passing on a deadly congenital disease--yet as few people as ever understand the odds. This book is aimed at the trouble with trying to learn about probability. A story of the misconceptions and difficulties civilization overcame in progressing toward probabilistic thinking, Randomness is also a skillful account of what makes the science of probability so daunting in our own day. To acquire a (correct) intuition of chance is not easy to begin with, and moving from an intuitive sense to a formal notion of probability presents further problems. Author Deborah Bennett traces the path this process takes in an individual trying to come to grips with concepts of uncertainty and fairness, and also charts the parallel path by which societies have developed ideas about chance. Why, from ancient to modern times, have people resorted to chance in making decisions? Is a decision made by random choice fair? What role has gambling played in our understanding of chance? Why do some individuals and societies refuse to accept randomness at all? If understanding randomness is so important to probabilistic thinking, why do the experts disagree about what it really is? And why are our intuitions about chance almost always dead wrong? Anyone who has puzzled over a probability conundrum is struck by the paradoxes and counterintuitive results that occur at a relatively simple level. Why this should be, and how it has been the case through the ages, for bumblers and brilliant mathematicians alike, is the entertaining and enlightening lesson of Randomness.
Author: Deborah J. Bennett Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674020771 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
From the ancients' first readings of the innards of birds to your neighbor's last bout with the state lottery, humankind has put itself into the hands of chance. Today life itself may be at stake when probability comes into play--in the chance of a false negative in a medical test, in the reliability of DNA findings as legal evidence, or in the likelihood of passing on a deadly congenital disease--yet as few people as ever understand the odds. This book is aimed at the trouble with trying to learn about probability. A story of the misconceptions and difficulties civilization overcame in progressing toward probabilistic thinking, Randomness is also a skillful account of what makes the science of probability so daunting in our own day. To acquire a (correct) intuition of chance is not easy to begin with, and moving from an intuitive sense to a formal notion of probability presents further problems. Author Deborah Bennett traces the path this process takes in an individual trying to come to grips with concepts of uncertainty and fairness, and also charts the parallel path by which societies have developed ideas about chance. Why, from ancient to modern times, have people resorted to chance in making decisions? Is a decision made by random choice fair? What role has gambling played in our understanding of chance? Why do some individuals and societies refuse to accept randomness at all? If understanding randomness is so important to probabilistic thinking, why do the experts disagree about what it really is? And why are our intuitions about chance almost always dead wrong? Anyone who has puzzled over a probability conundrum is struck by the paradoxes and counterintuitive results that occur at a relatively simple level. Why this should be, and how it has been the case through the ages, for bumblers and brilliant mathematicians alike, is the entertaining and enlightening lesson of Randomness.
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb Publisher: Random House ISBN: 1588367673 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 369
Book Description
Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Fooled by Randomness is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. Nassim Nicholas Taleb–veteran trader, renowned risk expert, polymathic scholar, erudite raconteur, and New York Times bestselling author of The Black Swan–has written a modern classic that turns on its head what we believe about luck and skill. This book is about luck–or more precisely, about how we perceive and deal with luck in life and business. Set against the backdrop of the most conspicuous forum in which luck is mistaken for skill–the world of trading–Fooled by Randomness provides captivating insight into one of the least understood factors in all our lives. Writing in an entertaining narrative style, the author tackles major intellectual issues related to the underestimation of the influence of happenstance on our lives. The book is populated with an array of characters, some of whom have grasped, in their own way, the significance of chance: the baseball legend Yogi Berra; the philosopher of knowledge Karl Popper; the ancient world’s wisest man, Solon; the modern financier George Soros; and the Greek voyager Odysseus. We also meet the fictional Nero, who seems to understand the role of randomness in his professional life but falls victim to his own superstitious foolishness. However, the most recognizable character of all remains unnamed–the lucky fool who happens to be in the right place at the right time–he embodies the “survival of the least fit.” Such individuals attract devoted followers who believe in their guru’s insights and methods. But no one can replicate what is obtained by chance. Are we capable of distinguishing the fortunate charlatan from the genuine visionary? Must we always try to uncover nonexistent messages in random events? It may be impossible to guard ourselves against the vagaries of the goddess Fortuna, but after reading Fooled by Randomness we can be a little better prepared. Named by Fortune One of the Smartest Books of All Time A Financial Times Best Business Book of the Year
Author: Gregory J. Chaitin Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 1447103076 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 164
Book Description
This essential companion to Chaitin's successful books The Unknowable and The Limits of Mathematics, presents the technical core of his theory of program-size complexity. The two previous volumes are more concerned with applications to meta-mathematics. LISP is used to present the key algorithms and to enable computer users to interact with the authors proofs and discover for themselves how they work. The LISP code for this book is available at the author's Web site together with a Java applet LISP interpreter. "No one has looked deeper and farther into the abyss of randomness and its role in mathematics than Greg Chaitin. This book tells you everything hes seen. Don miss it." John Casti, Santa Fe Institute, Author of Goedel: A Life of Logic.'
Author: Rodney G. Downey Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 0387684417 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 855
Book Description
Computability and complexity theory are two central areas of research in theoretical computer science. This book provides a systematic, technical development of "algorithmic randomness" and complexity for scientists from diverse fields.
Author: Christian Bucher Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 0203876539 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 248
Book Description
Proper treatment of structural behavior under severe loading - such as the performance of a high-rise building during an earthquake - relies heavily on the use of probability-based analysis and decision-making tools. Proper application of these tools is significantly enhanced by a thorough understanding of the underlying theoretical and computation
Author: John Tyler Bonner Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400846420 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 149
Book Description
The important role that randomness plays in evolutionary change John Tyler Bonner, one of our most distinguished and insightful biologists, here challenges a central tenet of evolutionary biology. In this concise, elegantly written book, he makes the bold and provocative claim that some biological diversity may be explained by something other than natural selection. With his customary wit and accessible style, Bonner makes an argument for the underappreciated role that randomness—or chance—plays in evolution. Due to the tremendous and enduring influence of Darwin's natural selection, the importance of randomness has been to some extent overshadowed. Bonner shows how the effects of randomness differ for organisms of different sizes, and how the smaller an organism is, the more likely it is that morphological differences will be random and selection may not be involved to any degree. He traces the increase in size and complexity of organisms over geological time, and looks at the varying significance of randomness at different size levels, from microorganisms to large mammals. Bonner also discusses how sexual cycles vary depending on size and complexity, and how the trend away from randomness in higher forms has even been reversed in some social organisms. Certain to provoke lively discussion, Randomness in Evolution is a book that may fundamentally change our understanding of evolution and the history of life.
Author: Karl Svozil Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 9789810208097 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 314
Book Description
Recent findings in the computer sciences, discrete mathematics, formal logics and metamathematics have opened up a royal road for the investigation of undecidability and randomness in physics. A translation of these formal concepts yields a fresh look into diverse features of physical modelling such as quantum complementarity and the measurement problem, but also stipulates questions related to the necessity of the assumption of continua.Conversely, any computer may be perceived as a physical system: not only in the immediate sense of the physical properties of its hardware. Computers are a medium to virtual realities. The foreseeable importance of such virtual realities stimulates the investigation of an ?inner description?, a ?virtual physics? of these universes of computation. Indeed, one may consider our own universe as just one particular realisation of an enormous number of virtual realities, most of them awaiting discovery.One motive of this book is the recognition that what is often referred to as ?randomness? in physics might actually be a signature of undecidability for systems whose evolution is computable on a step-by-step basis. To give a flavour of the type of questions envisaged: Consider an arbitrary algorithmic system which is computable on a step-by-step basis. Then it is in general impossible to specify a second algorithmic procedure, including itself, which, by experimental input-output analysis, is capable of finding the deterministic law of the first system. But even if such a law is specified beforehand, it is in general impossible to predict the system behaviour in the ?distant future?. In other words: no ?speedup? or ?computational shortcut? is available. In this approach, classical paradoxes can be formally translated into no-go theorems concerning intrinsic physical perception.It is suggested that complementarity can be modelled by experiments on finite automata, where measurements of one observable of the automaton destroys the possibility to measure another observable of the same automaton and it vice versa.Besides undecidability, a great part of the book is dedicated to a formal definition of randomness and entropy measures based on algorithmic information theory.
Author: Johanna N. Y. Franklin Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108808271 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 371
Book Description
The last two decades have seen a wave of exciting new developments in the theory of algorithmic randomness and its applications to other areas of mathematics. This volume surveys much of the recent work that has not been included in published volumes until now. It contains a range of articles on algorithmic randomness and its interactions with closely related topics such as computability theory and computational complexity, as well as wider applications in areas of mathematics including analysis, probability, and ergodic theory. In addition to being an indispensable reference for researchers in algorithmic randomness, the unified view of the theory presented here makes this an excellent entry point for graduate students and other newcomers to the field.
Author: André Nies Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191627887 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 450
Book Description
The interplay between computability and randomness has been an active area of research in recent years, reflected by ample funding in the USA, numerous workshops, and publications on the subject. The complexity and the randomness aspect of a set of natural numbers are closely related. Traditionally, computability theory is concerned with the complexity aspect. However, computability theoretic tools can also be used to introduce mathematical counterparts for the intuitive notion of randomness of a set. Recent research shows that, conversely, concepts and methods originating from randomness enrich computability theory. The book covers topics such as lowness and highness properties, Kolmogorov complexity, betting strategies and higher computability. Both the basics and recent research results are desribed, providing a very readable introduction to the exciting interface of computability and randomness for graduates and researchers in computability theory, theoretical computer science, and measure theory.
Author: Anatoly Ruvinsky Publisher: CRC Press ISBN: 9781420078879 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 160
Book Description
Analyzes Randomness in Major Genetic Processes and Events No matter how far science advances, the proportion of what is knowable to what is random will remain unchanged, and attempts to ignore this critical threshold are futile at best. With the revolutionary explosion in genetic information discovery, it is crucially important to recognize the underlying limitations of scientific prediction in genetics. Genetics and Randomness furthers the understanding of the role randomness plays in critical biological processes. The book also navigates the complex nature of genetic uncertainty from different points of view and at various levels of biological organization. Avoids Unnecessary Technical Details and Specific Terminology Exploring areas ranging from basic quantum mechanics and molecular genetics to modern evolutionary genetics and the philosophy of mathematics, this well-organized text discusses: Spontaneity of mutations and their relation to subatomic randomness Deep links between subatomic fluctuations and long-term macroscopic changes in living organisms The multitude of random events that occur during development Segregation, genetic drift, and natural selection Randomness and uncertainty are not occasional and regretful deviations from the "true" principles upon which life is built. Genetics and Randomness illustrates the ubiquitous nature of randomness as an integral feature of all essential processes, effectively embracing a probabilistic understanding of the phenomena of life.
Author: Deborah J. Bennett
Author: Deborah J. Bennett
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Author: Gregory J. Chaitin
Author: Rodney G. Downey
Author: Christian Bucher
Author: John Tyler Bonner
Author: Karl Svozil
Author: Johanna N. Y. Franklin
Author: André Nies
Author: Anatoly Ruvinsky