EVERYDAY PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS: Health, Elections, Gambling and War
by Woolfson, Michael M.Format: Hardcover
Pub. Date: 2008-07-30
Publisher(s): World Scientific Pub Co Inc
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Summary
Probability and statistics impinge on the life of the average person in a variety of ways - as is suggested by the title of this book. Very often, information is provided that is factually accurate but intended to present a biased view. This book presents the important results of probability and statistics without making heavy mathematical demands on the reader. It should enable an intelligent reader to properly assess statistical information and to understand that the same information can be presented in different ways. Book jacket.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| The Nature of Probability | p. 5 |
| Probability and Everyday Speech | p. 5 |
| Spinning a Coin | p. 6 |
| Throwing or Spinning Other Objects | p. 8 |
| Problems 1 | p. 10 |
| Combining Probabilities | p. 13 |
| Either-or Probability | p. 13 |
| Both-and Probability | p. 15 |
| Genetically Inherited Disease - Just Gene Dependent | p. 16 |
| Genetically Dependent Disease - Gender Dependent | p. 19 |
| A Dice Game - American Craps | p. 21 |
| Problems 2 | p. 23 |
| A Day at the Races | p. 25 |
| Kinds of Probability | p. 25 |
| Betting on a Horse | p. 27 |
| The Best Conditions for a Punter | p. 31 |
| Problem 3 | p. 33 |
| Making Choices and Selections | p. 35 |
| Children Leaving a Room | p. 35 |
| Picking a Team | p. 37 |
| Choosing an Email Username | p. 40 |
| The UK National Lottery | p. 41 |
| Problems 4 | p. 44 |
| Non-Intuitive Examples of Probability | p. 45 |
| The Birthday Problem | p. 45 |
| Crown and Anchor | p. 49 |
| To Switch or Not to Switch - That is the Question | p. 52 |
| Problems 5 | p. 54 |
| Probability and Health | p. 55 |
| Finding the Best Treatment | p. 55 |
| Testing Drugs | p. 58 |
| Problems 6 | p. 64 |
| Combining Probabilities; The Craps Game Revealed | p. 67 |
| A Simple Probability Machine | p. 67 |
| Pontoon - A Card Game | p. 70 |
| The Throwers Chance of Winning at American Craps | p. 72 |
| Problems 7 | p. 75 |
| The UK National Lottery, Loaded Dice, and Crooked Wheels | p. 77 |
| The Need to Test for Fairness | p. 77 |
| Testing Random Numbers | p. 79 |
| The UK National Lottery | p. 82 |
| American Craps with Loaded Dice | p. 84 |
| Testing for a Loaded Die | p. 89 |
| The Roulette Wheel | p. 91 |
| Problems 8 | p. 93 |
| Block Diagrams | p. 95 |
| Variation in Almost Everything | p. 95 |
| A Shoe Manufacturer | p. 96 |
| Histogram Shapes | p. 99 |
| Lofty and Shorty | p. 101 |
| Problem 9 | p. 104 |
| The Normal (or Gaussian) Distribution | p. 105 |
| Probability Distributions | p. 105 |
| The Normal Distribution | p. 108 |
| The Variance and Standard Deviation | p. 110 |
| Properties of Normal Distributions | p. 111 |
| A Little Necessary Mathematics | p. 114 |
| Some Special Numbers | p. 114 |
| Powers of Numbers | p. 115 |
| The Form of the Normal Distribution | p. 117 |
| Random and Systematic Errors | p. 117 |
| Some Examples of the Normal Distribution | p. 119 |
| Electric Light Bulbs | p. 119 |
| People on Trolleys and Under-Used Resources | p. 120 |
| Problems 10 | p. 123 |
| Statistics - The Collection and Analysis of Numerical Data | p. 125 |
| Too Much Information | p. 125 |
| Another Way of Finding the Variance | p. 126 |
| From Regional to National Statistics | p. 127 |
| Problems 11 | p. 130 |
| The Poisson Distribution and Death by Horse Kicks | p. 131 |
| Rare Events | p. 131 |
| Typing a Manuscript | p. 133 |
| The Poisson Distribution as a Formula | p. 135 |
| Death by Horse Kicks | p. 137 |
| Some Other Examples of the Poisson Distribution | p. 139 |
| Flying Bomb Attacks on London | p. 139 |
| Clustering of a Disease | p. 141 |
| Some Further Examples | p. 142 |
| Problems 12 | p. 143 |
| Predicting Voting Patterns | p. 145 |
| Election Polls | p. 145 |
| Polling Statistics | p. 146 |
| Combining Polling Samples | p. 149 |
| Polling with More than Two Parties | p. 151 |
| Factors Affecting Polls and Voting | p. 153 |
| Problems 13 | p. 154 |
| Taking Samples - How Many Fish in the Pond? | p. 155 |
| Why do we Sample? | p. 155 |
| Finding out from Samples | p. 156 |
| An Illustrative Example | p. 158 |
| General Comments on Sampling | p. 160 |
| Quality Control | p. 160 |
| How Many Fish in the Pond? | p. 162 |
| Problems 14 | p. 164 |
| Differences - Rats and IQs | p. 165 |
| The Significance of Differences | p. 165 |
| Significantly Different - So What! | p. 167 |
| Problem 15 | p. 170 |
| Crime is Increasing and Decreasing | p. 171 |
| Crime and the Reporting of Crime | p. 171 |
| The Trend for Overall Crime in England and Wales | p. 172 |
| Vehicle Crime, Burglary, and Violent Crime | p. 174 |
| Homicide | p. 177 |
| Crime and Politicians | p. 179 |
| Problem 16 | p. 181 |
| My Uncle Joe Smoked 60 a Day | p. 183 |
| Genetics and Disease | p. 183 |
| The Incidence of Smoking in the United Kingdom | p. 185 |
| The Smoking Lottery | p. 187 |
| Problem 17 | p. 189 |
| Chance, Luck, and Making Decisions | p. 191 |
| The Winds of Chance | p. 191 |
| Choices | p. 194 |
| I Want a Lucky General | p. 195 |
| To Fight or Not to Fight - That is the Question | p. 197 |
| The Mathematics of War | p. 200 |
| Problem 18 | p. 204 |
| Solutions to Problems | p. 205 |
| Index | p. 221 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
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