Customer Reviews

Introduction to Probability Models, Eighth Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have many of the same criticisms of this book that I do of Ross's book titled: "Probability: a first course". This book reviews most of the material from that book at a faster pace and then goes into other topics. Ross in the introduction states that his main goal in this text is to develop the reader's intuition for probabilistic reasoning. This book is excellent towards acheiving this goal, but not very good for anything else. It is a very "pure" probability text, completely ignoring the fact that the field of statistics exists and is useful. At the same time, it is somewhat weak on theory. Measure theory isn't mentioned, and the emphasis overall is on computation and problem solving, not proving theorems and understanding theoretical connections between different ideas.

This book has too many examples and not enough discussion. While the examples are usually well-executed, and while I think examples are important in probability, I think it's also important to talk about the abstract development of the subject. In my opinion, more prose and fewer examples would improve the quality of this text.

Another criticism I have of this book is that this book focuses exclusively on probability, refusing to touch statistics even with a ten foot pole. While this in itself is fine, I think this book misses numerous chances to pave the road towards the later study of mathematical statistics. The result is that someone reading this book will not be particularly well prepared for studying statistics, even though the fields of probability and statistics are intimately tied to each other.

Lastly, this book has gone through too many editions--one of the reasons I rated it 3 stars instead of 4 is that I believe that there has been almost no noticeable improvement in the last two editions (I have not read any farther back than that so I can't say more). I think this is a money-making scheme on behalf of the publisher, and I think this reflects poorly on the author and publisher alike.

I used this book for a graduate-level course in Stochastic Processes taught by Dr. Sheldon Ross himself. I must say that I never liked probability and stochastics until I read this book. Reading it is a pleasure! The topics are presented in a highly methodical manner, with plenty of examples and exercises. The exercises are presented in a gradation. Covers a wide range of topics, and is very helpful for a course in stochastics, especially for a student who doesn't have a strong background in P & SP. This is the book to own, don't miss it!

Tries to do too much and fails in delivering a rigorous understanding of the subject and this utter lack of mathematical rigor is the main flaw of the book. For a better understanding of stochastic processes consult the books by Karlin, Hoel and so forth. However, it does have some nice problems and some good examples to work through. I think that the author's other book, "A first course in probability" is much better.

This book tries to teach probability through examples. Most would be too difficult to work out as homework. This would be ideal for someone who wanted to get an understanding of Stochastic Process without investing too much time into homework. If, however, you wish to work out the homework, you will be frusterated to find out that there are not solutions to problems in the back of the book (except about 10% of the problems which are more or less worked out completely). If you are like me, you will want a book that gives answers to double check your work as you go along rather than the occasional complete solution. It is surprising that he did not put this in this book since "A First Course in Probability" included answers to the odd problems in the back.

I'm currently using this book for a course. I recommend taking courses in probability and mathematical statistics before this, which I neglected and which made the class difficult, but this is an excellent book. We've covered about half of the chapters, and only about half of the sections of those, and I find myself wanting to take another course from this book. I've heard some complaints about the level of rigor... I'm an engineer and find it sufficiently rigorous without being tedious, and were I a mathematician, I would probably just take another course or read more if I really wanted that level of detail.

This is a MUST HAVE for anyone doing monte carlo simulation and I wish I'd bought it years ago.

As with all his books, this one is clearly written, with wonderful examples, and an intuitive approach. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in understanding probability and stochastic processes.

Most books have a natural tendancy to concentrate on the context of the material into theory but this book was very well written by the author. Not only are the defintions, concepts, and formulas structured into a flow of easy comprehension, but the detailed examples and solutions are an asset for any person interested in beginning their understanding of the subject with a solid and concrete foundation. The reason why there are so many negative reviews about this book is simply because those people thought it would be a walk in the park without little effort. In conclusion, the probability of one not liking this book is almost zero if they are willing to put in a litte effort instead of depending on spoonfeeding.

Ross presents a good treatment of probability theory. Enough rigour to be suitable for most students. Along with a very extensive problem set for each chapter. Instructors looking for a good text to accompany a course might consider this book. The exercises are varied enough to cover most of the aspects of each chapter. Answers are given to some exercises. But notably not all.

All the common, important distributions are explained, along with their usages. Poisson, geometric, exponential. Even the somewhat obscure hypergeometric. Plus, there is an extensive discussion of Markov chains, which find many applications.

A solid book for an undergrad student majoring in this field.

Some readers found this book hard to read. This is due to the misleading title, i.e., the word 'introduction'. This book will be great only if the readers have basic concepts of probability. It is suggested to read the book 'A First Course in Probability' by the same author or similar kind before reading this book.

Some readers found this book hard to read. This is due to the misleading title, i.e., the word 'introductory'. This book is great only if the readers are prepared. It is suggested to read an introductory book like "A First Course in Probability" by the same author or similar kind.