DO DICE PLAY GOD?

A definitely-not-dumbed-down exploration of predicting outcomes, whether of an election, card game, medical test, or weather front.

Stewart (Emeritus, Mathematics/Univ. of Warwick; Significant Figures: The Lives and Work of Great Mathematicians, 2017), the prolific popular author of books on his specialty, points out that “an aspect of the human condition that arguably singles out our species from most other animals is time-binding. We’re conscious that there will be a future, and we plan our current behavior in the context of our expectations of that future.” Predicting odds is straightforward (though not always easy), and predicting the future turns out to be surprisingly possible, but both require calculations—in other words, mathematics. Popular writers on difficult topics involving math and science often assure readers that they will limit the equations, but Stewart has no patience with this tradition, so readers who do not remember high school algebra will have a difficult time. The author interweaves his account with a lively history that, few readers will be surprised to learn, began in the Renaissance, largely with gamblers who wrote long monographs that teased out the unnerving peculiarities of dice and cards. Stewart states bluntly that “the human intuition for probability is hopeless.” Evolution has trained us to make quick decisions, which are essential in the struggle for existence but a bad idea when faced with even simple abstractions such as estimating odds. He illustrates with plenty of squirm-inducing paradoxes. Example: A couple has two children; at least one is a girl. What is the chance that they have two girls? Almost everyone answers 1 in 2, but it’s 1 in 3. Now suppose that the elder child is a girl. What is the chance that they have two girls? This time 1 in 2  is correct.

The innumerate will struggle, but every reader will encounter gems and jolts in this expert analysis of probability.