Chancing It
eBook - ePub

Chancing It

The Laws of Chance and How They Can Work for You

  1. 304 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Chancing It

The Laws of Chance and How They Can Work for You

About this book

Make your own luck by understanding probability Over the years, some very smart people have thought they understood the rules of chance?only to fail dismally. Whether you call it probability, risk, or uncertainty, the workings of chance often defy common sense. Fortunately, advances in math and science have revealed the laws of chance, and understanding those laws can help in your everyday life. In Chancing It, award-winning scientist and writer Robert Matthews shows how to understand the laws of probability and use them to your advantage. He gives you access to some of the most potent intellectual tools ever developed and explains how to use them to guide your judgments and decisions. By the end of the book, you will know:

  • How to understand and even predict coincidences
  • When an insurance policy is worth having
  • Why "expert" predictions are often misleading
  • How to tell when a scientific claim is a breakthrough or baloney
  • When it makes sense to place a bet on anything from sports to stock markets

?A groundbreaking introduction to the power of probability, Chancing It will sharpen your decision-making and maximize your luck.

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Information

Publisher
Skyhorse
Year
2017
Print ISBN
9781510723795
eBook ISBN
9781510723818

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. Foreword by Larry Gonick
  7. Introduction
  8. 1. The coin-tossing prisoner of the Nazis
  9. 2. What the Law of Averages really means
  10. 3. The dark secret of the Golden Theorem
  11. 4. The First Law of Lawlessness
  12. 5. What are the chances of that?
  13. 6. Thinking independently is no yolk
  14. 7. Random lessons from the lottery
  15. 8. Warning: there’s a lot of X about
  16. 9. Why the amazing so often turns ho-hum
  17. 10. If you don’t know, go random
  18. 11. Doing the right thing isn’t always ethical
  19. 12. How a lot of bull sparked a revolution
  20. 13. How to beat casinos at their own game
  21. 14. Where wise-guys go wrong
  22. 15. The Golden Rule of Gambling
  23. 16. Insure it – or chance it?
  24. 17. Making better bets in the Casino of Life
  25. 18. Tell me straight, doc – what are my chances?
  26. 19. This is not a drill! Repeat: this is not a drill!
  27. 20. The miraculous formula of Reverend Bayes
  28. 21. When Dr Turing met Reverend Bayes
  29. 22. Using Bayes to be a better judge
  30. 23. A scandal of significance
  31. 24. Dodging the Amazing Baloney Machine
  32. 25. Making use of what you already know
  33. 26. I’m sorry, professor, I just don’t buy it
  34. 27. The Amazing Curve for Everything
  35. 28. The dangers of thinking everything’s Normal
  36. 29. Ugly sisters and evil twins
  37. 30. Going to extremes
  38. 31. See a Nicolas Cage movie and die
  39. 32. We’ve got to draw the line somewhere
  40. 33. Playing the markets isn’t rocket science
  41. 34. Beware geeks bearing models
  42. Acknowledgements
  43. Notes
  44. Index

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