"Peterson's knowledge of and affection for mathematics comes through with every word."--San Diego Union Tribune. "Peterson is, in short, the math teacher everyone wishes they had in high school."--Publishers Weekly. "Peterson has honed his explanatory skills finely. He is a readable guide through the tangles of probability and random chance. The Jungles of Randomness will give some insight into one of the most fruitful areas where math meets practical living."--Christian Science Monitor. The delightful trek through the exotic and powerful world of randomness. Popular math author Ivars Peterson leads readers on an exciting foray into the wilds of randomness, introducing exciting new discoveries--from hidden rules governing games of chance to how the first molecules of life formed and how random numbers can protect sensitive information on the Internet. Along the way, he charts the ambiguous boundary between order and chaos, revealing the astonishing patterns so often hidden in apparent randomness as well as the startling randomness often embedded in apparent order. Ivars Peterson (Washington, D.C.) is the mathematics and physics editor at Science News and the author of four previous trade books, including The Mathematical Tourist and Islands of Truth: A Mathematical Mystery Cruise.

From the ancients' first readings of the innards of birds to your neighbor's last bout with the state lottery, humankind has put itself into the hands of chance. Today life itself may be at stake when probability comes into play--in the chance of a false negative in a medical test, in the reliability of DNA findings as legal evidence, or in the likelihood of passing on a deadly congenital disease--yet as few people as ever understand the odds. This book is aimed at the trouble with trying to learn about probability. A story of the misconceptions and difficulties civilization overcame in progressing toward probabilistic thinking, Randomness is also a skillful account of what makes the science of probability so daunting in our own day. To acquire a (correct) intuition of chance is not easy to begin with, and moving from an intuitive sense to a formal notion of probability presents further problems. Author Deborah Bennett traces the path this process takes in an individual trying to come to grips with concepts of uncertainty and fairness, and also charts the parallel path by which societies have developed ideas about chance. Why, from ancient to modern times, have people resorted to chance in making decisions? Is a decision made by random choice fair? What role has gambling played in our understanding of chance? Why do some individuals and societies refuse to accept randomness at all? If understanding randomness is so important to probabilistic thinking, why do the experts disagree about what it really is? And why are our intuitions about chance almost always dead wrong? Anyone who has puzzled over a probability conundrum is struck by the paradoxes and counterintuitive results that occur at a relatively simple level. Why this should be, and how it has been the case through the ages, for bumblers and brilliant mathematicians alike, is the entertaining and enlightening lesson of Randomness.

This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Rudyard Kipling’s immortal The Jungle Books, includes: • Complete texts of both The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) • All of the Mowgli stories, plus “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” “The White Seal,” and many more tales and poems • 16 full-color illustrations by Maurice & Edward Detmold, plus more than 60 additional illustrations by William Drake and John Lockwood Kipling • Author’s Preface and Note on the Names, and a detailed author bio The Jungle Books collect some of the most beloved children’s stories ever written, since they were first published in magazines starting in 1893. The stories feature Mowgli, a foundling raised in the Seeonee hills of India by a pack of wolves, a wise black panther named Bagheera, and a gruff but lovable bear called Baloo. The books also include the beloved tale of the mongoose “Rikki-tikki-tavi,” “The White Seal,” and many more. These stories helped confirm Rudyard Kipling as one of the greatest children’s authors of any era, as well as one of the greatest writers and poets in the English language.

Collected articles on mathematics from the popular Math treks column; extra web support available.

Mother and Fatherwolf aren’t looking for trouble, but when a small man-child toddles by their cave, they decide they can’t leave him alone in the jungle. They take the boy into their pack, name him Mowgli, and raise him as one of their own cubs. Mowgli learns the law of the jungle from the big old brown bear Baloo and Bagheera the black panther, but even they can’t keep an eye on him all the time!

A visual journey to the intersection of math and imagination, guided by an award-winning author Mathematics is right brain work, art left brain, right? Not so. This intriguing book shows how intertwined the disciplines are. Portraying the work of many contemporary artists in media from metals to glass to snow, Fragments of Infinity draws us into the mysteries of one-sided surfaces, four-dimensional spaces, self-similar structures, and other bizarre or seemingly impossible features of modern mathematics as they are given visible expression. Featuring more than 250 beautiful illustrations and photographs of artworks ranging from sculptures both massive and minute to elaborate geometric tapestries and mosaics of startling complexity, this is an enthralling exploration of abstract shapes, space, and time made tangible. Ivars Peterson (Washington, DC) is the mathematics writer and online editor of Science News and the author of The Jungles of Randomness (Wiley: 0-471-16449-6), as well as four previous trade books.