Probability: A Very Short Introduction

Making good decisions under conditions of uncertainty requires a sound appreciation of the way random chance works. It requires, in short, an understanding of probability. In this Very Short Introduction, John Haigh introduces the ideas of probability — and the different philosophical approaches to probability — and gives a brief account of the history of development of probability theory, from Galileo and Pascal to Bayes, Laplace, Poisson, and Markov. He describes the basic probability distributions and discusses a wide range of applications in science, economics, and a variety of other contexts such as games and betting. He concludes with an intriguing discussion of coincidences and some curious paradoxes.

• Author
• John Haigh

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 128

• Publisher
• Oxford University Press, USA

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780199588480

• Genres
• mathematics, science, textbooks

• Release date
• 2012