What Is Random?: Chance and Order in Mathematics and Life - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Edward Beltrami is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York. His research interests include probability theory, mathematical biology, mathematical modelling, and many more. He is the author of several books on the applications of mathematics.

Beltrami lives with his wife and several cats in suburban Long Island. He enjoys cooking, listening to music, and being a part-time wine critic.

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We all know what randomness is. Or do we? Randomness turns out to be one of those concepts that works just fine on an everyday level, but becomes muddled upon close inspection. People familiar with quantum indeterminacy tell us that order is an illusion and that the world is fundamentally random. Yet these same people also say that randomness is an illusion: The appearance of randomness is only a sign of our ignorance and inability to detect the pattern.

This book will provoke, entertain, and inform by challenging your ideas about randomness, providing different interpretations of what this concept means, and showing how order and randomness are really two sides of the same mysterious coin. This second edition brings the question of randomness into the twenty-first century, adding compelling new topics such as quantum uncertainty, cognitive illusions caused by chance, Poisson processes, and Bayesian probability.

On the first edition:

I strongly recommend [What is Random?] to all who are interested in science and would like to see how the ideas of both theoretical mathematics and statistics have been observed and used in real life throughout history. The American Statistician