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The Improbability Principle
David J. Hand
Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
Scientific American
February 2014
On Sale: February 4, 2014
288 pages
ISBN: 0374175349
EAN: 9780374175344
Kindle: B00EGJAYT8
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
In The Improbability Principle, the renowned statistician
David J. Hand argues that extraordinarily rare events are
anything but. In fact, they’re commonplace. Not only that,
we should all expect to experience a miracle roughly once
every month. But Hand is no believer in superstitions, prophecies, or the
paranormal. His definition of “miracle” is thoroughly
rational. No mystical or supernatural explanation is
necessary to understand why someone is lucky enough to win
the lottery twice, or is destined to be hit by lightning
three times and still survive. All we need, Hand argues, is
a firm grounding in a powerful set of laws: the laws of
inevitability, of truly large numbers, of selection, of the
probability lever, and of near enough. Together, these constitute Hand’s groundbreaking
Improbability Principle. And together, they explain why we
should not be so surprised to bump into a friend in a
foreign country, or to come across the same unfamiliar word
four times in one day. Hand wrestles with seemingly less
explicable questions as well: what the Bible and Shakespeare
have in common, why financial crashes are par for the
course, and why lightning does strike the same place (and
the same person) twice. Along the way, he teaches us how to use the Improbability
Principle in our own lives—including how to cash in at a
casino and how to recognize when a medicine is truly
effective. An irresistible adventure into the laws behind
“chance” moments and a trusty guide for understanding the
world and universe we live in, The Improbability Principle
will transform how you think about serendipity and luck,
whether it’s in the world of business and finance or you’re
merely sitting in your backyard, tossing a ball into the air
and wondering where it will land.
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