The Improbability Principle

Posted on 18 February 2018 by David J. Hand

In The Improbability Principle, the renowned statistician David J Hand argues that extraordinarily rare events are anything but In fact, they re commonplace Not only that, we should all expect to experience a miracle roughly once every month But Hand is no believer in superstitions, prophecies, or the paranormal His definition of miracle is thoroughly rational No mystical or supernatural explanation is necessary to understand why someone is lucky enough to win the lottery twice, or is destined to be hit by lightning three times and still survive All we need, Hand argues, is a firm grounding in a powerful set of laws the laws of inevitability, of truly large numbers, of selection, of the probability lever, and of near enough Together, these constitute Hand s groundbreaking Improbability Principle And together, they explain why we should not be so surprised to bump into a friend in a foreign country, or to come across the same unfamiliar word four times in one day Hand wrestles with seemingly less explicable questions as well what the Bible and Shakespeare have in common, why financial crashes are par for the course, and why lightning does strike the same place and the same person twice Along the way, he teaches us how to use the Improbability Principle in our own lives including how to cash in at a casino and how to recognize when a medicine is truly effective An irresistible adventure into the laws behind chance moments and a trusty guide for understanding the world and universe we live in, The Improbability Principle will transform how you think about serendipity and luck, whether it s in the world of business and finance or you re merely sitting in your backyard, tossing a ball into the air and wondering where it will land. Best Read [ The Improbability Principle ] Author [ David J. Hand ] – kino-fada.fr Excelente livro sobre probabilidade e situa es do dia a dia De certa forma, complementar ao O andar do b bado Com boas no es e os princ pios matem ticos que explicam coincid ncias extremas, como a lei da improbabilidade, a lei dos n meros grandes, a lei do pr ximo o suficiente e outros tradu o porca minha Com direito a uma viagem pelas chances do surgimento da vida Leve, f cil de entender e bem explicado, acess vel e pensado para ser interessante Um dos livros mais legais que li esse a Excelente livro sobre probabilidade e situa es do dia a dia De certa forma, complementar ao O andar do ...After making my way through The Improbability Principle, I came to a startling revelation I really have to stop running out and buying books with positive reviews in MacLean s I suppose this very concisely shows my opinion on the book, but allow me to explain myself The Improbability Principle has a very interesting concept offering theories as to why the highly improbable seems to happen all the time I will grant that Hand s explanations are very insightful, but getting there proved to be h After making my way through The Improbability Principle, I came to a startling revelation I really have to stop running out and buying books with positive reviews in MacLean s I suppose this ...I am surprised this book has a fairly low rating I know that it is about statistics but there is not an equation to be found in the book and it is written in a fairly conversational and breezy style and has some interesting stuff on statistics I enjoyed reading it and it made me look at statistics in a slightly different way than I usually do I thought it covered a lot of statistical fa...How miracles, rare events and coincidences happen Moreover, everyday Begin this book by asking questions and by the end you may probably reach an answer It s not however an answer to what causes those rare events but how those events are not actually improbable It provides a new perspective and a different direction to look at things and their probabilities how statistics and numbers can alter situations and view points David Hand tries to explain I...Statistics Pretty basic with a nice coherent framework to make it understandable and useful Examples from everyday life depended a bit heavily on throwing dice I would have liked to see some poker or other games analyzed and used as examples I deal with examples of poor statistical thinking every day in my medical office It is my job to help people understand the true risk of treatment versus symptom or disease often it is not very clear and information from well meaning relatives and fri Statistics Pretty basic with a nice coherent framework to make it understandable and useful Examples from everyday life depended a bit heavily on throwing dice I would have liked to see some poker or other games analyzed and used as examples I deal with examples of poor statistical thinking every day in my medical office It is my job to help people understand the true risk of treatment versus symp...This is the best book on statistics I ve ever read, and I ve taken several courses on statistics You can apply the principles to playing the lottery and games of chance I m a backgammon player It will also change your thinking about coincidences and improbable events With enough tries, anything that is possible is likely to happen People have won the lottery twice And when you investigate deeper, some events might not have been so improbable in the first place Like the time my wife a This is the best book on statistics I ve ever read, and I ve taken several courses on statistics You can apply the principles to playing the lottery and games of chance I m a backgammon...It was fun to reflect on this book during the recent furor over the largest Powerball jackpot to date And I was especially interested in the meme that circulated for a while claiming that the 1.5 billion could make every American a millionaire For a brief moment, questions of probability, distributions, and statistics entered the American consciousness And then, with a winner announced, everyone went back to their regularly scheduled programming and statistical illiteracy remained.Numbers ar It was fun to reflect on this book during the recent furor over the largest Powerball jackpot to date And I was especially interested in the meme that circulated for a while claiming that the 1.5 billion could make every American a millionaire For a brief moment, questions of probability, distributions, and statistics entered the American consciousness And then, with a winner announced, everyone went back to their regularly scheduled programming and statistical illiteracy remained.Numbers are hard they are another language It is no one s first language And so this book is an attempt to translate statistics into English and into the everyday context It is sorely needed since the modern world is built on numbers Whether we want to or not, ...One confession before I start the review I used to hate statistics as a subject in school and college with a madness that only I was aware of Simply put it was beyond me That s it When I saw this book in the list by Random house I Google d the book as always and was amazed at what was there in the book.The probability factor has always fascinated me with it s could bes and would bes here the author has taken it to an altogether new depths completely...Il titolo provocatorio, poich tutti sappiamo che il caso esiste Il libro tratta in sostanza di teoria delle probabilit , ma senza formule ed in maniera comprensibile a tutti, e con una serie di esempi tratti dalla vita quotidiana o da fatti realmente accaduti In particolare, come si afferma nella prefazione,Questo libro parla di eventi straordinariamente improbabili Parla delle ragioni per cui accadono cose incredibilmente inverosimili Di pi parla del...

18 February 2018

David J. Hand