CRC Press Surprises in Probability: Seventeen Short Stories

This book brings together a variety of probability applications through entertaining stories that will appeal to a broad readership. What are the best stopping rules for the dating problem? What can Bayes’ formula tell us about the chances of a Champions League draw for soccer teams being rigged? How could syndicates win millions of lottery dollars by buying a multitude of tickets at the right time? What’s the best way to manage your betting bankroll in a game in which you have an edge? How to use probability to debunk quacks and psychic mediums? How can the Monte Carlo simulation be used to solve a wide variety of probability problems? Are seven riffle shuffles of a standard deck of 52 playing cards enough for randomness? Provides seventeen engaging stories that illustrate ideas in probability. Written so as to be suitable for those with minimal mathematical background. Stories can be read independently. Can be used as examples and exercises for teaching introductory probability. These questions and many more are addressed in seventeen short chapters that can be read independently. The engaging stories are instructive and demonstrate valuable probabilistic ideas. They offer students material that they most likely don’t learn in class, and offer teachers a new way of teaching their subject. Review "Henk Tijms is well known for seeking to make the ideas of probability accessible to the lay reader. Here, a typical chapter considers some setting where chance plays a role, and, with minimal use of mathematical formulae, Tijms shows how to reach a sensible conclusion. Not surprisingly, several of the book’s 17 short stories feature lotteries and/or casinos. Some chapters offer instances where the probability in question is much larger than would frequently be supposed; others give examples of extremely rare events. … Do read a copy – you will surely enjoy it."―John Haigh in Significance, June 2019 "The author mentions that the book can be useful for teachers and, indeed, this is a collection of surprising probability results―surprising in the sense that the numerical probabilities are not necessarily intuitive. …. All in all, this small book is a nice if unsurprising database for illustrations and possibly for exercises in elementary probability courses … . It makes for nice reading, especially while traveling. I hope some fellow traveler will pick up the book from where I left it in the Mexico City airport."―Christian Robert in Chance, April 2019 "Surprises in Probability – Seventeen Short Stories" is another gem by international award-winning probability expert Henk Tijms. This superb collection of real-life probability stories ranges from 17th century gamblers’ discoveries to 21st century lotteries, sports betting, and investment strategies. Each story draws the reader in, and then enlightens them with both basic and subtle probability principles that illuminate and explain the apparent paradoxes. Perfect for the college student trying to get a feel for probability, for the instructor looking for examples to enliven their classes, for experts looking for just the right examples to share with their friends, and for weekend scientists not afraid to scratch their heads and smile, waiting for the Aha! moment that always appears. Analytical insights, theoretical principles, counterintuitive conclusions are all presented in Professor Tijms' patented lively style. ―Ted Hill, author of Pushing Limits "In a world full of uncertainty, you can't know enough about the laws of chance. Henk Tijms is a master at explaining how they work, showing why they so often catch us out in everyday life. Chances are you'll be amazed by his insights."―Robert Matthews, author of Chancing It "A challenge, when teaching introductory statistics, can be to motivate what seem to be at times very abstract concepts. This short book grew out of a series of popular science articles written for magazines or blogs. It comprises seventee