Probability & Statistics

A comprehensive guide to statistics-with information on collecting, measuring, analyzing, and presenting statistical data-continuing the popular 101 series. Data is everywhere. In the age of the internet and social media, we're responsible for consuming, evaluating, and analyzing... data on a daily basis. From understanding the percentage probability that it will rain later today, to evaluating your risk of a health problem, or the fluctuations in the stock market, statistics impact our lives in a variety of ways, and are vital to a variety of careers and fields of practice. Unfortunately, most statistics text books just make us want to take a snooze, but with Statistics 101, you'll learn the basics of statistics in a way that is both easy-to-understand and apply. From learning the theory of probability and different kinds of distribution concepts, to identifying data patterns and graphing and presenting precise findings, this essential guide can help turn statistical math from scary and complicated, to easy and fun. Whether you are a student looking to supplement your learning, a worker hoping to better understand how statistics works for your job, or a lifelong learner looking to improve your grasp of the world, Statistics 101 has you covered.
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Topics include developments based on breakthroughs in the mathematical understanding of phenomena describing systems in highly inhomogeneous and disordered media, including the KPZ universality class (describing the evolution of interfaces in two dimensions), random walks in rand...om environment and percolative systems.
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From lotteries, opinion polls and insurance to worries about murder rates, natural disasters and terrorism, probability plays a major part in our everyday lives-a part that is frequently and needlessly misunderstood. Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, a math professor and improvisational come...dian, comes to the rescue with this irreverent, bestselling exploration of the odds and oddities of randomness. Looking at such familiar topics as poker hands, e-mail spam, political elections and game shows, Struck by Lightning puts probability into perspective and has fun along the way.
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The world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. These days, calling bullshit is a noble act. Based on their popular, eponymous, course at the Un...iversity of Washington, professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West catalogue bullshit in its many forms, explaining where bullshit arose in our evolutionary past and why it is ubiquitous today. Calling Bullshit offers readers the tools to see through the obfuscations, deliberate and careless, that dominate every realm of our lives. In this lively guide Bergstrom, a computational biologist, and West, a statistician, teach us that calling bullshit is crucial to a properly functioning social group, whether it be a circle of friends, a community of academics, or the citizenry of a nation.
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'Correlation does not imply causation.' This mantra was invoked by scientists for decades in order to avoid taking positions as to whether one thing caused another, such as smoking and cancer and carbon dioxide and global warming. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolut...ion, sparked by world-renowned computer scientist Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed cause and effect on a firm scientific basis. Now, Pearl and science journalist Dana Mackenzie explain causal thinking to general readers for the first time, showing how it allows us to explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It is the essence of human and artificial intelligence. And just as Pearl's discoveries have enabled machines to think better, The Book of Why explains how we can think better.
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