Everyone who's had to get to grips with chance knows how tricky even its simplest manifestations can be. Its workings are a constant challenge to common sense: a run of luck goes bad just when you trust it; expert predictions of everything from the weather to elections prove hopelessly unreliable; proven health advice turns out to be anything but.
Award-winning scientist and writer Robert Matthews shows us how we can cut through the conundrums of chance. He gives us access to some of the most potent intellectual tools ever developed, and explains how we can use them to guide our judgements and decisions. By the end of the book you'll know:
-The secret to predicting coincidences;
-The golden rule of professional gamblers;
-How to tell when insurance is a waste of money;
-When to heed health and diet warnings - and when to ignore them;
-How to tell when forecasts are worth taking seriously;
-How to make better choices in the face of uncertainty.
Using a host of real-life examples, this groundbreaking book shows how the laws of probability can sharpen your decisions, make the most of your luck - and quite possibly transform your life.
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Table of contents
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The coin-tossing prisoner of the Nazis
- 2. What the Law of Averages really means
- 3. The dark secret of the Golden Theorem
- 4. The First Law of Lawlessness
- 5. What are the chances of that?
- 6. Thinking independently is no yolk
- 7. Random lessons from the lottery
- 8. Warning. there’s a lot of X about
- 9. Why the amazing so often turns ho-hum
- 10. If you don’t know, go random
- 11. Doing the right thing isn’t always ethical
- 12. How a lot of bull sparked a revolution
- 13. How to beat casinos at their own game
- 14. Where wise-guys go wrong
- 15. The Golden Rule of Gambling
- 16. Insure it – or chance it?
- 17. Making better bets in the Casino of Life
- 18. Tell me straight, doc – what are my chances?
- 19. This is not a drill! Repeat. this is not a drill!
- 20. The miraculous formula of Reverend Bayes
- 21. When Dr Turing met Reverend Bayes
- 22. Using Bayes to be a better judge
- 23. A scandal of significance
- 24. Dodging the Amazing Baloney Machine
- 25. Making use of what you already know
- 26. I’m sorry, professor, I just don’t buy it
- 27. The Amazing Curve for Everything
- 28. The dangers of thinking everything’s Normal
- 29. Ugly sisters and evil twins
- 30. Going to extremes
- 31. See a Nicolas Cage movie and die
- 32. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere
- 33. Playing the markets isn’t rocket science
- 34. Beware geeks bearing models
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
- Index
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Yes, you can access Chancing It by Robert Matthews in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Business & Business General. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.