Digital Dice
by Paul J. Nahin 2020-08-28 23:32:40
image1
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 p... Read more
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. In a new preface, Nahin wittily addresses some of the responses he received to the first edition. Less
  • File size
  • Print pages
  • Publisher
  • Publication date
  • Language
  • ISBN
  • 8.5 X 5.5 X 0 in
  • 288
  • Princeton University Press
  • March 24, 2013
  • eng
  • 9781400846115
Paul J. Nahin is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at the University of New Hampshire and the author of many best-selling popular math books, including The Logician and the Engineer and Wil...
Compare Prices
image
Paperback
Available Discount
12 % OFF
12% off Academic Book Titles (ebooks.com)

See More Details

Description: Back to School Promotion at eBooks.com. 12% off Academic book titles. Landing page is on our academics category page. Static image.

10 % OFF
Save 10% OFF on Student Text Books (ebooks.com)

See More Details

Description: Purchase textbooks at student discounts!

20 % OFF
20% Off on selected Categories

See More Details

Description: 20% Off these Categories- Body Mind & Spirit, Family & Relationships, Foreign Language Study, History, Sports & Recreation. Offer Lasts all through January.

Related Books