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The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Vintage) |  | Author: Leonard Mlodinow
Publisher: Vintage
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $7.50
as of 3/11/2010 17:49 CST details
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New (42) Used (30) from $5.47
Seller: ChateauLivres
Rating:  138 reviews
Sales Rank: 2416
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307275175
Dewey Decimal Number: 519.2
EAN: 9780307275172
ASIN: 0307275175
Publication Date: May 5, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | ISBN13: 9780307275172 | | • | Condition: NEW | | • | Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark. |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Guest Review: Stephen Hawking
Published in 1988, Stephen Hawkings A Brief History of Time became perhaps one of the unlikeliest bestsellers in history: a not-so-dumbed-down exploration of physics and the universe that occupied the London Sunday Times bestseller list for 237 weeks. Later successes include 1995s A Briefer History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell, and God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History. Stephen Hawking is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.  In The Drunkards Walk Leonard Mlodinow provides readers with a wonderfully readable guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives. With insight he shows how the hallmarks of chance are apparent in the course of events all around us. The understanding of randomness has brought about profound changes in the way we view our surroundings, and our universe. I am pleased that Leonard has skillfully explained this important branch of mathematics. --Stephen Hawking
Product Description
With the born storyteller's command of narrative and imaginative approach, Leonard Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how our lives are profoundly informed by chance and randomness and how everything from wine ratings and corporate success to school grades and political polls are less reliable than we believe.
By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions. From the classroom to the courtroom and from financial markets to supermarkets, Mlodinow's intriguing and illuminating look at how randomness, chance, and probability affect our daily lives will intrigue, awe, and inspire.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 138
 Fascinating insights. March 9, 2010
Randall H. Russell (Portland OR USA)
Wonderful review of the concepts. Loved the story used to illustrate reversion to the mean and how we misinterpret data.
Entertaining and Educational March 2, 2010
Johnny B. (Lawrence, KS USA)
This book provides an enterntaining and educational account of the history of probability and statistics. Filled with anecdotes and explanations, it is a fun read.
outstanding... February 22, 2010
buddha18
blown away by this book...but, do we cause randomness? i usually read spiritual books so, i have to see the connection of all things...check out Live Like A Fruit Fly - also on amazon
Great examples! February 16, 2010
Psyc Researcher (Mobile, AL USA)
I teach psychology courses at a university and use several examples from this book to illustrate differences between how the brain/computers determine things. I've also cited this book in an article I've published. It's a fascinating read that is accessible to a wide variety of audiences, but doesn't dumb things down to the point that they lose their meaning. Highly recommended!
How to see that "cruel fate" is an oxymoron February 3, 2010
Jeremy M. Harris (Worthington, OH USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Humans are so skilled at pattern-seeking, and so taken with the notion of actively-managed destinies, that they regularly (and sometimes tragically) mistake routine coincidental events for fragments of some cosmic strategist's grand plan. Countless people could significantly sharpen their understanding of the world and its workings if only they would pay attention to Prof. Mlodinow and other educators striving to explain and clarify the immense influence of chance events on our daily lives. Among the general public, a pervasive lack of appreciation for the importance of randomness often shows up in casual pronouncements such as "There are no coincidences." It is hard to imagine a less true claim.
Mlodinow guides the reader through ten chapters forming an entertaining introduction to probability and statistics, with many interesting sidelights. One such is an explanation of Benford's law, which has helped catch criminals trying to fake random number sequences in illegal lotteries. In fact, says the author, some of the characteristics of random series are so counterintuitive that people may imagine they detect a bias. A similar effect once caused Apple Computer to make its iPod shuffle sequences less random in order to seem more random.
Having given the reader a useful store of background knowledge in the first nine chapters, the author introduces the kernel of the book's conclusions in chapter 10, which carries the book's main title ("The Drunkard's Walk"). Mlodinow's core theme is that the modern echoes of Laplace's determinist view of the world, embodied in the notion of a personal destiny for each human being, are, on balance, harmful to clear and critical thinking. Our pattern-prone minds are endlessly creative at linking events and experiences into a seemingly coherent version of what some invisible intelligence has in store for us, or has used to influence the fate of others. But the author provides many examples showing that even the most "obvious" causal chains were far more randomly influenced than they appeared to be in the seductively misleading light of 20-20 hindsight.
Although it may sound cynical and discouraging at first, the view promoted in this book is actually healthier and ultimately more optimistic than reliance on a mysterious, intelligently- guided "destiny" which needlessly causes us to agonize over the imagined motives of a nonexistent grand supervisor. Just as Darwin found a certain grandeur in the immensely long trial-and-error saga of evolution, we can take comfort in the recognition that we all face the same spectrum of strictly impersonal odds in the daily lottery of life.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 138
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