Digital Dice: Computational Solutions to Practical Probability Problems

Nahin, Paul J

ISBN 10: 0691126984 / ISBN 13: 9780691126982

Published by Princeton University Press, 2008

About this Item

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has hardback covers. In good all round condition. Dust jacket in good condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,600grams, ISBN:9780691126982.

Seller Inventory # 9981928

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Digital Dice: Computational Solutions to Practical Probability Problems
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication Date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691126984
• ISBN 13: 9780691126982
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mathematics

About this title

Synopsis

Some probability problems are so difficult that they stump the smartest mathematicians. But even the hardest of these problems can often be solved with a computer and a Monte Carlo simulation, in which a random-number generator simulates a physical process, such as a million rolls of a pair of dice. This is what "Digital Dice" is all about: how to get numerical answers to difficult probability problems without having to solve complicated mathematical equations. Popular-math writer Paul Nahin challenges readers to solve twenty-one difficult but fun problems, from determining the odds of coin-flipping games to figuring out the behavior of elevators. Problems build from relatively easy (deciding whether a dishwasher who breaks most of the dishes at a restaurant during a given week is clumsy or just the victim of randomness) to the very difficult (tackling branching processes of the kind that had to be solved by Manhattan Project mathematician Stanislaw Ulam).In his characteristic style, Nahin brings the problems to life with interesting and odd historical anecdotes. Readers learn, for example, not just how to determine the optimal stopping point in any selection process but that astronomer Johannes Kepler selected his second wife by interviewing eleven women. The book shows readers how to write elementary computer codes using any common programming language, and provides solutions and line-by-line walk-throughs of a MATLAB code for each problem. "Digital Dice" will appeal to anyone who enjoys popular math or computer science.

About the Author

Paul J. Nahin is the author of many best-selling popular-math books, including "Chases and Escapes, Dr. Euler's Fabulous Formula, When Least is Best, Duelling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers", and "An Imaginary Tale" (all Princeton). He is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at the University of New Hampshire.