The drunkard's walk: how randomness rules our lives

Abstract

Leonard Mlodinow's Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives is an exhilarating, eye-opening guide to understanding our random world. Randomness and uncertainty surround everything we do. So why are we so bad at understanding them? The same tools that help us understand the random paths of molecules can be applied to the randomness that governs so many aspects of our everyday lives, from winning the lottery to road safety, and reveals the truth about the success of sporting heroes and film stars, and even how to make sense of a blood test. Drunkard's Walk reveals the psychological illusions that prevent us understanding everything from stock-picking to wine-tasting - read it, or risk becoming another victim of chance. A wonderfully readable guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives. (Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time). Delightful...Our lives may be shaped by chance, but they are enriched by awareness - just the sort of awareness that this fascinating book will give you. (Guardian). 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). Please read Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow, a history, explanation, and exaltation of probability theory...The results are mind-bending. (Fortune). Leonard Mlodinow has a Ph.D., has been a member of the faculty of the California Institute of Technology and a television writer in Hollywood, as well as developing many award winning CD-ROMs. He is currently Vice President of Emerging Technologies and R&D at Scholastic Inc. and lives in New York City. His previous books include A Brief History of Time, which he co-authored, as well as Euclid's Window and Some Time with Feynman, both published by Penguin.

Locations

• Choice Reviews Online - View
• Caltech Magazine (California Institute of Technology) - View - PDF