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Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
A drunkard's walk is a type of random statistical distribution with important applications in scientific studies ranging from biology to astronomy. Mlodinow, a visiting lecturer at Caltech and coauthor with Stephen Hawking of A Briefer History of Time, leads readers on a walk through the hills and valleys of randomness and how it directs our lives more than we realize. Mlodinow introduces important historical figures such as Bernoulli, Laplace and Pascal, emphasizing their ideas rather than their tumultuous private lives. Mlodinow defines such tricky concepts as regression to the mean and the law of large numbers, which should help readers as they navigate the daily deluge of election polls and new studies on how to live to 100. The author also carefully avoids veering off into the terra incognita of chaos theory aside from a brief mention of the famous butterfly effect, although he might have spent a little more time on the equally famous n-body problem that led to chaos theory. Books on randomness and statistics line library shelves, but Mlodinow will help readers sort out Mark Twain's damn lies from meaningful statistics and the choices we face every day. (May 13)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
“Mlodinow writes in a breezy style, interspersing probabilistic mind-benders with portraits of theorists.... The result is a readable crash course in randomness.”—The New York Times Book Review“A wonderfully readable guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives.”—Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time"[Mlodinow] thinks in equations but explains in anecdote, simile, and occasional bursts of neon. . . . The results are mind-bending."—Fortune"Even if you begin The Drunkard's Walk as a skeptic, by the time you reach the final pages, you will gain an understanding-if not acceptance-of the intuitively improbable ways that probability biases the outcomes of life's uncertainties."—Barron's“Delightfully entertaining.”—Scientific American “A magnificent exploration of the role that chance plays in our lives. The probability is high that you will be entertained and enlightened by this intelligent charmer.” —Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness“Mlodinow is the perfect guy to reveal the ways unrelated elements can relate and connect.”—The Miami Herald“A primer on the science of probability.”—The Washington Post Book World“Challenges our intuitions about probability and explores how, by understanding randomness, we can better grasp our world.” —Seed Magazine“Mlodinow has an intimate perspective on randomness.”—The Austin Chronicle
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Most helpful customer reviews
23 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Book on Randomness in Everyday Life,
By
This review is from: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Hardcover)
I just love books like this - especially when they're as well-written as this one. The author, a physicist, proceeds to show the reader how randomness plays a much greater role in everyday life than one might think. As he discusses the basics of probability and statistics, he provides wonderful illustrations from fields as wide-ranging as sports, medicine, psychology, the stock market, etc., etc. He does an excellent job in driving home the fact that the true probability of events is not intuitive. Perhaps because of this anti-intuitiveness, I had to read a few paragraphs more than once to allow the point being made to sink in. One enigma that is particularly well explained is the Monty Hall (Let's Make a Deal) problem. The writing style is clear, accessible, very friendly, quite authoritative, engaging and often very witty. This book can be enjoyed by absolutely everyone, but I suspect that math and science buffs will savor it the most. By the way, the math-phobic need not fear: the book does not contain a single mathematical formula.
5.0 out of 5 stars
What, we don't have control of our existence?,
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This review is from: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Paperback)
We all like to think that we determine our own destiny, that we are the all-mighty purveyors of our success and failure, that through the illusion of control we can gain an understanding of all cause and effect to our existence. How about the success of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerbergs of the world Surely, they are deserving of the billions of dollars they have earned and the accolades that have been poured down on them. Mr. Mlodinow will argue otherwise. Our successes and failures have more to do with chance and stubborn stick-to-itiveness than anything having to do with cause and effect. When we get a lucky break, that's exactly what it is, a lucky break. The numbers will prove this to be so. Mr. Mlodinow argues that our ability to understand the past is practically perfect but our ability to predict the future using those same cause and effect indicators is very poor. In fact, chance and random numbers would be a better predictor. When the performance of Mutual Fund managers is measure against the performance of random numbers, the result is the same. Individual behavior mirrors that of the drunkard's walk, the path of an individual molecule as it travels through a gas or liquid. We can only predict the probability of a certain behaviour, not its final outcome. Our own path through life involves a series of chance events that have lead us to where we sit at the present moment. To think back and understand that existence as having been determined by individual factors from the past is to suffer from the illusion of control. We like to think we have it. In fact, our very existence can depend upon it but in point of fact, it doesn't exist. The likelihood of publishing that book or getting that next promotion or finding that perfect partner has more to do with chance than anything to do with what we can control so we'd rather pretend than accept.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I expected, but pleasantly surprised nonetheless.,
By
This review is from: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Paperback)
Excellent book on the history of statistics. Mlodinow does a beautiful of job of going through a basic course in statistics with insightful applications, while looking at the lives of some of the mathematicians and scientists that contributed to the field. Good writing and captivating story-telling.The last chapter was a tad disappointing, the conclusion was approached from more of a psychological perspective as opposed to the mathematical approach to sociology that I was expecting. If you are interested in some of the psychological biases that the author explores in the last chapter I recommend 'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely as well.
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