Short description
"A magnificent exploration of the role that chance plays in our lives. Often historical, occasionally hysterical, and consistently smart and funny, this book challenges everything we think we know--Daniel Gilbert, author of "Stumbling on Happiness."
Long description
In this irreverent and illuminating book, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, change, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious cases, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance. The rise and fall of your favorite movie star of the most reviled CEO--in fact, of all our destinies--reflects as much as planning and innate abilities. Even the legendary Roger Maris, who beat Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, was in all likelihood not great but just lucky. And it might be shocking to realize that you are twice as likely to be killed in a car accident on your way to buying a lottery ticket than you are to win the lottery. How could it have happened that a wine was given five out of five stars, the highest rating, in one journal and in another it was called the worst wine of the decade? Mlodinow vividly demonstrates how wine ratings, school grades, political polls, and many other things in daily life are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of change and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives fresh insight into what is really meaningful and how we can make decisions based on a deeper truth. From the classroom to the courtroom, from financial markets to supermarkets, from the doctor's office to the Oval Office, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire. Offering readers not only a tour of randomness, chance, and probability but also a new way of looking at the world, this original, unexpected journey reminds us that much in our lives is about as predictable as the steps of a stumbling man fresh from a night at the bar. From the Hardcover edition.
Review
Mlodinow writes in a breezy style, interspersing probabilistic mind-benders with portraits of theorists.... The result is a readable crash course in randomness.
-- The New York Times Book Review
A magnificent exploration of the role that chance plays in our lives. The probability is high that you will be entertained and enlightened by this intelligent charmer.
--Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness
Mlodinow is the perfect guy to reveal the ways unrelated elements can relate and connect.
-- The Miami Herald
A history, explanation, and exaltation of probability theory.... Mlodinow thinks in equations but explains in anecdote, simile, and occasional bursts of neon.... The results are mind-bending.
-- Fortune
A primer on the science of probability.
-- The Washington Post Book World
A wonderfully readable guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives.
--Stephen Hawking
Challenges our intuitions about probability and explores how, by understanding randomness, we can better grasp our world.
-- Seed Magazine
Mlodinow has an intimate perspective on randomness.
-- The Austin Chronicle
Even if you begin The Drunkard's Walk as a skeptic, by the time you reach the final pages, you will gain an understanding--not acceptance--of the intuitively improbable ways that probability biases the outcomes of life's uncertainties.
-- Barron's