The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari [Paperback]

Ivars Peterson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471295876 | ISBN-13: 978-0471295877 | Publication Date: September 8, 1998 | Edition: 1

"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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

We use the word random as though we understood what it meant, but, of course, its superficial meaning only betrays our deep ignorance of what is really going on. Random is mostly used to label anything we can't predict, from the roll of a die to our spouse's next major purchase, but what's actually happening to cause the unanticipated results? Ivars Peterson makes this complexity simple in The Jungles of Randomness.

As the mathematics and physics editor of Science News, Peterson knows his topic thoroughly and writes with a flair that stimulates the imagination. Whether telling about snowflake-shaped drums; brilliant, eccentric Paul Erdös's geometrical fantasies; or unbreakable and nearly unbreakable codes, he knows just when and where to open a topic a bit further to provoke greater insights. The eight gorgeous color plates and dozens of illustrations are well chosen and complement the text without overwhelming it.

Inevitably, The Jungles of Randomness touches on subjects as diverse as molecular biology, engineering, and entomology, but it stays rooted in the field from which our understanding of complexity first arose: mathematics. A fascinating and underreported field, math is finally getting the mainstream attention it has always deserved, and it's not hard to understand why with exciting books like this pointing the way. Where this will lead us is anyone's guess, but the die is cast. --Rob Lightner

From Scientific American

From a purely operational point of view, mathematician Mark Kac once said, "the concept of randomness is so elusive as to cease to be viable." Peterson examines a number of processes that seem random but may not be. In flipping a coin, he points out, "we know from experience (or theory) that we're likely to obtain an equal number of heads and tails in a long sequence of tosses. So if we see twenty-five heads in a row, it might be the legitimate though improbable result of a random process. However, it might also be advisable to check whether the coin is fair and to find out something about the fellow who's doing the flipping." Peterson looks at randomness in rolling dice, human concourse, slot machines, the synchronous flashing of fireflies in Southeast Asia and several other fields, presenting the mathematics imaginatively and clearly. Discussing the electronically manufactured random numbers that govern the operation of slot machines and other casino games, he says: "The trouble is, just as no real die, coin, or roulette wheel is ever likely to be perfectly fair, no numerical recipe produces truly random numbers. The mere existence of a formula suggests some sort of predictability or pattern."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 239 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471295876
• ISBN-13: 978-0471295877
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Infinitely Entertaining...., March 26, 2001

By 

yygsgsdrassil "yygsgsdrassil" (Crossroads America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (Hardcover)

....not evvybody shares my love of mathematics, statistics, games and chance. People say folks like me are a strange lot, hence, I have been relunctant to put many mathematical and game related book reviews in my repertoire. This, however, is an exception to the rule..."math book = dry reading". It shows how probability and stats and random number generating can apply to evvyday living.

Before I go on, I have the urge to type these:

"Ah, but to all the other monkeys in the world, maybe the ape sitting at the keyboard DID recreate the Gutenberg Bible."

"When travelling in Europe, be wary of non-bottled potable water and, apparently, buy one get three free cheeseburgers."

There, I've gotten those off my chest. What do they have to do with this review? Well, Peterson here deals with odds--Odds and their contexts, like in coin flips and dice outcomes and hot hands for pro basketball players and random number generators on slot machines and such. The Chapters on Brownian Motion entitled "Trails of the Wanderer" and "Lifetimes of Chance" are great because he talks about the lottery and winning the lottery, how stocks in the stock market have some type of Brownian motion, magnets, dominoes, roulette wheels at casinos--you know all the interesting things a man ought to be attracted to, described in a punchy, easy to digest manner...

Each chapter is forwarded with a quote or poetry verse gleaned from classic literature, for example, the Chapter "Complete Chaos" has a part of a canto from Milton's "Paradise Lost".

Also the Color Plates show some awesome sights like the one depicting vibrations on the membrane shaped like a fractal snowflake and the visual representation of the output from a high speed random-number generator.

A few lay types may be put off by his mentioning of some musty mathematician or statistician here and there but, to his credit Peterson does not try to lay some indecipherable equation on the reader when he describes what said math or stat person is to his basic text. Or, in other words, no need for math anxiety unless you're generally anxious about a lot anyways...this ain't rocket science, people!

Well, actually, yes it could be, but you would not know it from the way Peterson has presented it in this fabulous read....

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Snapshots of probability topics by science journalist, May 27, 2007

By 

David J. Aldous "gentleman scholar" (Alameda, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (Hardcover)

Consists of 2-3 page sections on topics (e.g. Chutes and Ladders as a Markov chain; Ramsey theory; coupled oscillators; error-correcting codes; Brownian motion and Levy flights) in probability and related areas of mathematics. The individual sections are clearly and interestingly explained by science journalist author who understands the mathematics. But compiling such magazine articles into a book gives it an overall choppy feel, jumping from topic to topic without sustained logical thread.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Popular Mathematics, June 29, 2004

By 

Kurt M. Weber "Your moral superior" (Princeton, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Jungles of Randomness: A Mathematical Safari (Hardcover)

In this work of popular mathematics, Ivars Peterson explains the phenomena and regularity underlying seemingly random occurrences in our lives. Dry wit and keen understanding of mundane episodes provide an impressing dissection of how even the most chance events are in fact due to phenomena that, though easily understood, interact in such complex ways as to be beyond our comprehension--producing the supposedly "random" results we perceive.

As with many attempts to popularize science, this book is very light on theory and equations, instead explaining the practical significance of its subject. However, it does provide many names and enough theory to serve as a jumping point for further investigation into such areas as chaos, fractal geometry, information theory, and more.