Fluke

The Maths and Myths of Coincidences

Paperback

Published June 2, 2016 by imusti, Oneworld Publications.

ISBN:
978-1-78074-899-3
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3 stars (4 reviews)

Looks at coincidences and unlikely occurrences, delving into the mathematical concepts of probability and sharing stories of striking flukes and coincidences from around the world.

4 editions

Review of 'Fluke' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Joseph Mazur (the author) goes into so many different ways that chance and probability actually DO predict the totally unlikely, and he points out the POSSIBILITY and PROBABILITY of things that seem extremely unusual, unlikely, and downright freaky and magical occurring, thereby emphasizing the rationality of the world – and the IRRATIONALITY of pseudoscience, premonition, and ESP/psychic beliefs.
He goes into several realms: economy, weather, relationships, and day-to-day life for instance. Reality and probability are both amazing and surprising, and it's interesting to see demonstrated and described how they totally help to define our world and experiences without the need to go to magic!

Review of 'Fluke' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

tl;dr: Have a large enough sample and even rare things will happen, as such your freak coincidences aren't as unlikely as you think.

That could have been all the book, but instead the reader gets some anecdotes of coincidences, along with combinatorics 101. Unfortunately the book ends up neither here nor there: If you've been to high school and have ever heard of Bernoulli, then the combinatorics-part will bore you (and if you haven't been it might be too formalistic to understand). If you came for the anecdotes you'll find that there are too little of those.

recommended: for people who like to philosophize about coincidences without ever having picked up a book on chance.

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2 stars
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3 stars