Human beings have long been both fascinated and appalled by randomness. On the one hand, we love the thrill of a surprise party or the freedom of not knowing what tomorrow will bring. We are inexplicably delighted by strange coincidences and striking similarities. But we also hate uncertainty's dark side. From cancer to bird flu, diseases may strike with no apparent pattern. Terrorists attack, airplanes crash, bridges collapse, and we never know if we'll be that one-in-a-million statistic.In this entertaining look at the world of probabilities, Jeffrey Rosenthal, maths professor and improvisational comedian, explains the mechanics of randomness in fields as diverse as poker hands, email spam, crime statistics, opinion polls and lottery jackpots. Read this and chances are, you will never look at the world the same way again. The book discusses such topics as: from lottery jackpots to terrorist attacks, public opinion polls and margins of error, casino games, how probability can help fight spam e-mail, and many more.
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Review
This lively and thought-provoking study of what we might call `luck' is full of amusing and unexpected examples.
-- The Good Book Guide
`Light yet intuitive, this book oozes originality and could become a best seller'
-- Big Issue in the North
-- The Good Book Guide
`Light yet intuitive, this book oozes originality and could become a best seller'
-- Big Issue in the North
About the Author
Jeffrey S. Rosenthal is professor in the Department of Statistics, University of Toronto. He is also an improvisational comedian, amateur musician and computer game programmer. Struck by Lightning has been a bestseller in Canada.
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First Sentence
When I was a graduate student at Harvard University, I booked a flight to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to visit some relatives. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
When I was a graduate student at Harvard University, I booked a flight to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport to visit some relatives. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Big Jim
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
If you have read the book, "Why do buses come in threes" many of the statistical quirks identified in this book will be known to you. There are however a number of humerous anecdotes in this book that make it a worthy purchase, especially the story about the frog! Some way into the book the author gets bogged down a bit in electoral statistics, but his stuff on gambling is surprisingly readable and will certainly keep me out of casinos for the forseeable future.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is probably OK for complete newcomers, but seems a bit lightweight if you were hoping for some new insight or research. What really spoils it though, is the embarrassing 'anecdotes'; silly little stories that illustrate a point about probability whereby the other characters are made to look stupid, while the author comes out of it as the 'winner' because he's so smart. Albeit smug, nerdy and very, very punchable :-)
3.0 out of 5 stars
Brief examples of how probability works in real life presented in an easy to understand language.
3 Nov 2012
By Frederik
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Struck by Lightning is a brief and entertaining mix of cases from the world of probabilities.
The book is written in an easily-understandable language and includes many examples of the role probability plays in our everyday lives. The book is easy and quick to read.
The reader doesn't need to have any preceding knowledge of probability theory to enjoy this book. The book will serve as a great introduction to anyone who wants to know the basic of probability theory and how this knowledge can be helpful in everyday situations.
Struck by Lightning is a pop-science book and people who are already familiar with probability theory may find this book too light, although the numerous examples of how probability theory applies to the real world may serve as a nice short break from more theoretic books.
The book briefly explains the fundamental probability behind various topics. Below is a list of some of the concepts explained in the book:
-Probability of dices and various games (e.g. Poker, Craps, Roulette etc.)
-Law of Large numbers
-Expected value
-Six degrees of separations
-The Birthday Problem (the chance of two people in a crowd sharing the same birthday)
-Poisson clumping
-The true probability of certain events (e.g. homicide, attack of terrorist, winning the lottery, airplane crashing etc.) as opposed to the view proposed by politicians, the media or your own mind.
-Utility functions (e.g. making choices by asserting a value to different outcomes and multiplying the probability of each outcome)
-The Monty Hall problem
-Spam filters
In short: Struck by Lightning contains lots of brief examples of how probability works in real life presented in an easy to understand language.
The book is written in an easily-understandable language and includes many examples of the role probability plays in our everyday lives. The book is easy and quick to read.
The reader doesn't need to have any preceding knowledge of probability theory to enjoy this book. The book will serve as a great introduction to anyone who wants to know the basic of probability theory and how this knowledge can be helpful in everyday situations.
Struck by Lightning is a pop-science book and people who are already familiar with probability theory may find this book too light, although the numerous examples of how probability theory applies to the real world may serve as a nice short break from more theoretic books.
The book briefly explains the fundamental probability behind various topics. Below is a list of some of the concepts explained in the book:
-Probability of dices and various games (e.g. Poker, Craps, Roulette etc.)
-Law of Large numbers
-Expected value
-Six degrees of separations
-The Birthday Problem (the chance of two people in a crowd sharing the same birthday)
-Poisson clumping
-The true probability of certain events (e.g. homicide, attack of terrorist, winning the lottery, airplane crashing etc.) as opposed to the view proposed by politicians, the media or your own mind.
-Utility functions (e.g. making choices by asserting a value to different outcomes and multiplying the probability of each outcome)
-The Monty Hall problem
-Spam filters
In short: Struck by Lightning contains lots of brief examples of how probability works in real life presented in an easy to understand language.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Struck by Lightning
If probability has been a mystery to you, read this book! It is entertaining and enlightening.
Published on 9 Sep 2009 by Renfield
5.0 out of 5 stars
SUPER BOOK.
This book is great light reading into probability theory in an interesting way, such as your chances of winning the national lottery: if you bought one ticket a week... Read more
Published on 1 April 2008 by Edward Fry
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