Do Dice Play God?   The Mathematics of Uncertainty

基本信息

Format:Paperback / softback 304 pages, Charts, graphs and illustrations throughout

Publisher:Profile Books Ltd

Imprint:Profile Books Ltd

ISBN:9781781259443

Published:4 Aug 2020

Classifications:Philosophy of mathematics, Probability & statistics

Weight:250g

Dimensions:129 x 198 x 22 (mm)

Pub. Country:United Kingdom

书籍简介

Uncertainty is everywhere. It lurks in every consideration of the future - the weather, the economy, the sex of an unborn child - even quantities we think that we know such as populations or the transit of the planets contain the possibility of error. It's no wonder that, throughout that history, we have attempted to produce rigidly defined areas of uncertainty - we prefer the surprise party to the surprise asteroid.

We began our quest to make certain an uncertain world by reading omens in livers, tea leaves, and the stars. However, over the centuries, driven by curiosity, competition, and a desire be better gamblers, pioneering mathematicians and scientists began to reduce wild uncertainties to tame distributions of probability and statistical inferences. But, even as unknown unknowns became known unknowns, our pessimism made us believe that some problems were unsolvable and our intuition misled us.

Worse, as we realized how omnipresent and varied uncertainty is, we encountered chaos, quantum mechanics, and the limitations of our predictive power. Bestselling author Professor Ian Stewart explores the history and mathematics of uncertainty. Touching on gambling, probability, statistics, financial and weather forecasts, censuses, medical studies, chaos, quantum physics, and climate, he makes one thing clear: a reasonable probability is the only certainty.

不确定性是无处不在。它潜伏在对未来的每一个考虑中——天气、经济、未出生孩子的性别——甚至我们认为我们知道的数量，如人口或行星的运行，都有可能出错。毫无疑问，在整个历史过程中，我们一直试图创造严格定义的不确定性区域——我们更喜欢惊喜派对，而不是惊喜的小行星。

我们通过阅读肝脏、茶叶和星星的预兆来确定一个不确定的世界。然而，几个世纪以来，在好奇心、竞争和成为更好的赌徒的欲望的驱使下，开拓性的数学家和科学家开始减少不确定性，以驯服概率分布和统计推断。但是，即使未知的未知变成了已知的未知，我们的悲观使我们相信有些问题是无法解决的，我们的直觉误导了我们。

更糟糕的是，当我们意识到不确定性是多么的无处不在和多变时，我们遇到了混沌、量子力学和我们预测能力的局限性。畅销书作者伊恩·斯图尔特教授探索了不确定性的历史和数学。在谈到赌博、概率、统计、金融和天气预报、人口普查、医学研究、混沌、量子物理学和气候时，他明确地指出:合理的概率是唯一的确定性。

作者简介

Ian Stewart is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Warwick and the author of the bestseller Professor Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematics Curiosities. His recent books include Significant Figures, Incredible Numbers, Seventeen Equations that Changed the World, Professor Stewart's Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries and Calculating the Cosmos (all published by Profile). His app, Incredible Numbers, was published jointly by Profile and Touch Press in 2014. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

伊恩·斯图尔特是华威大学的名誉数学教授，也是畅销书《斯图尔特教授的数学奇思妙想之家》的作者。他最近的书包括《重要的数字》、《难以置信的数字》、《改变世界的17个方程式》、《斯图尔特教授的数学奥秘案例集》和《计算宇宙》(全部由Profile出版)。他的应用程序Incredible Numbers于2014年由Profile和Touch Press联合发布。他是皇家学会的会员。