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Paul J. Nahin
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Duelling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers (Princeton Puzzlers)

by Paul Nahin (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings
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What are your chances of dying on your next flight, being called for jury duty, or winning the lottery? We all encounter probability problems in our everyday lives. In this collection of twenty-one puzzles, Paul Nahin challenges us to think creatively about the laws of probability as they apply in playful, sometimes deceptive, ways to a fascinating array of speculative situations. Games of Russian roulette, problems involving the accumulation of insects on flypaper, and strategies for determining the odds of the underdog winning the World Series all reveal intriguing dimensions to the workings of probability. Over the years, Nahin, a veteran writer and teacher of the subject, has collected these and other favorite puzzles designed to instruct and entertain math enthusiasts of all backgrounds.


If idiots A and B alternately take aim at each other with a six-shot revolver containing one bullet, what is the probability idiot A will win? What are the chances it will snow on your birthday in any given year? How can researchers use coin flipping and the laws of probability to obtain honest answers to embarrassing survey questions? The solutions are presented here in detail, and many contain a profound element of surprise. And some puzzles are beautiful illustrations of basic mathematical concepts: "The Blind Spider and the Fly," for example, is a clever variation of a "random walk" problem, and "Duelling Idiots" and "The Underdog and the World Series" are straightforward introductions to binomial distributions.


Written in an informal way and containing a plethora of interesting historical material, Duelling Idiots is ideal for those who are fascinated by mathematics and the role it plays in everyday life and in our imaginations.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0691102864
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0691102863
  3. Publisher
    Princeton University Press
  4. Publication date
    July 1, 2002
  5. Part of series
    Princeton Puzzlers
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.69 x 8.5 inches
  8. Print length
    296 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Nahin's sophisticated puzzles, and their accompanying explanations, have a far better than even chance of fascinating and preoccupying the mathematically literate readership they seek." ― Publisher's Weekly

"An entertaining, thought-provoking collection of twenty-one puzzles. . . .These puzzles invite the reader to think intuitively, mathematically, and creatively about the laws of probability as they apply in lighthearted, often counterintuitive ways to a diverse collection of practical and speculative situations." ― Mathematics Teacher

"By following Nahin's informal style it is possible to set [the examples] up quickly from first principles and slip them into courses on calculus, algebra, or scientific programming. They also offer a wealth of topics for undergraduate projects. Those duelling idiots are fighting over a goldmine."---Des Higham, MSOR Connections

Review

"For those of us who thoroughly enjoy a good puzzle, Duelling Idiots is indeed a welcome book. What Paul Nahin offers is essentially the mathematical equivalent of a collection of Far Side cartoons: a series of quirky vignettes, each with an amusing punchline that reveals something new about an offbeat aspect of reality."―Mark Denny, Stanford University

"Duelling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers seeks to teach the fundamentals of elementary probability theory using topics that are familiar to most everyone. Its light-hearted way of explaining serious subjects is a refreshing approach."―Robert B. Banks, author of Towing Icebergs, Falling Dominoes and of Slicing Pizzas, Racing Turtles

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Princeton University Press (July 1, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 296 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0691102864
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0691102863
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.69 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

About the author

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Paul J. Nahin

Paul J. Nahin

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Paul Nahin was born in California, and did all his schooling there (Brea-Olinda High 1958, Stanford BS 1962, Caltech MS 1963, and - as a Howard Hughes Staff Doctoral Fellow - UC/Irvine PhD 1972, with all degrees in electrical engineering). He worked as a digital logic designer and radar systems engineer in the Southern California aerospace industry until 1971, when he started his academic career. He has taught at Harvey Mudd College, the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Universities of New Hampshire (where he is now emeritus professor of electrical engineering) and Virginia. In between and here-and-there he spent a post-doctoral year at the Naval Research Laboratory, and a summer and a year at the Center for Naval Analyses and the Institute for Defense Analyses as a weapon systems analyst, all in Washington, DC. He has published a couple dozen short science fiction stories in ANALOG, OMNI, and TWILIGHT ZONE magazines, and has written 24 books on mathematics and physics, published by IEEE Press, Springer, and the university presses of Johns Hopkins and Princeton. Translations of his books in Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Korean, Spanish, Romanian, and Japanese have appeared. The book THE MATHEMATICAL RADIO was published by Princeton in January 2024 and the book THE PROBABILITY INTEGRAL was published by Springer in October 2023. He has given invited talks on mathematics at the Anja Greer Math and Technology Conference at Phillips Exeter Academy (twice, in 2008 and 2018), as well as at Bowdoin College, the Claremont Graduate School, the University of Tennessee, and Caltech, has appeared on National Public Radio's "Science Friday" show (discussing time travel) as well as on New Hampshire Public Radio's "The Front Porch" show (discussing imaginary numbers), and advised Boston's WGBH Public Television's "Nova" program on the script for their time travel episode. He gave the invited Sampson Lectures for 2011 in Mathematics at Bates College (Lewiston, Maine). He received the 2017 Chandler Davis Prize for Excellence in Expository Writing in Mathematics.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
We don’t use a simple average to calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star. Our system gives more weight to certain factors—including how recent the review is and if the reviewer bought it on Amazon. Learn more
16 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

HARRY T MADISON
5.0 out of 5 stars product review
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2021
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item received in excellent condition at a good price
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Dr. Hoenikker
2.0 out of 5 stars Exactly who did the author have in mind?
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2003
Verified Purchase
The best puzzle books start with problems that are interesting and non trivial, and offer unexpected solutions. They appeal to a crowd with different levels of education and offer a new idea or two to all. They will lead an unsuspecting layman to a new beautiful mathematical subject, and treat a pro with a lighthearted yet technically sound look at the concepts he is already familiar with.

"Dueling idiots" is none of that. To read it you must be more than familiar with probability theory, and at ease with going through rather tedious calculations and using mathlab. Yet all a sophisticated reader finds here is technical sloppiness and absence of fresh ideas.

I am giving it two stars rather than one because it could provide some probability theory buff with a nice set of "real life" applications -- good as an auxiliary text book for an undergraduate probability class e.g. Apart from that, you will find a better puzzle book almost anywhere you look.
23 people found this helpful
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Guillermo D Irisarri
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent probability teasers and solutions!
Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2000
This is yet another excellent contribution by professor Paul Nahin. The format of this book is different from his previous texts, but the high quality content is still there.
The book is divided into three main parts. In the first part he presents the problems and elaborates on their history, if any, and provides hints or solves a related problem. In the second part, he provides complete solutions to the problems, both analytical and through computer simulation in most cases. Finally, in the third part, he includes all the programs (MATLAB version) used to obtain the solution to the puzzlers.
The book also includes a chapter on random number generation, a key element of Montecarlo simulation.
Some knowledge of basic probability and random variables is required to fully understand the problems and solutions. Also, knowledge of calculus is needed (particularly integral calculus). To understand the computer solutions the reader must know MATLAB. The computer simulations, however, can be rewritten using any languange. Personally, I prefer Perl and that is what I used to run some of the simulations.
I believe that the computer programs could have been included in a CD or diskette, or a download site could have been used. Then, the 67 or so pages dedicated to these programs, could have been used to provide 5-10 additional problems!
28 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Laymen stay away
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2013
Verified Purchase
I bought the book after reading the kindle sample.

I find in the first section of the full version that this book might be useful "as a supplement as you take an elementary course in probability"... "If you don't know what that sentence said, this book may be just a bit too much for you, at least for now."

Ouch. I was looking for something a little simpler...

My suggestion: if you're a noob like me, stay away, even if you found the kindle sample interesting.

At least until you finish your elementary course in probability.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Io
5.0 out of 5 stars Like all Nahin's books this one is a joy to ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 4, 2016
Verified Purchase
Like all Nahin's books this one is a joy to read and reread. As a former MATLAB-programmer, I always get a little itch, when I see his MATLAB-programs with all their loops, but that is for a reason. The programs are more readable that way, and Nahin has explained his take on programming style anyway. In one of his prefaces, he mentioned an irate correspondent who complained about a missing semi-colon. That guy did have a point, although he turned out to be totally ignorant of MATLAB. A semicolon at the end of a command prevents the results being shown on screen. In the good old days, at least, forgetting a semicolon could slow a program down by factors of thousands since the calculations themselves took little time but all the work associated with showing every intermediate step was really, really slow. Think looping over a 1000*1000 matrix and printing all of the stages. :-) Well, these were just old memories, I hope I'm forgiven, and do look out for almost anything Nahin has written.
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David Getling
5.0 out of 5 stars More than high school maths needed, but not a Ph.D.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 19, 2015
Verified Purchase
There are plenty of good tough problems in this book, but readers are going to need some undergraduate maths to fully appreciate it. One of the things I like about this, and other Nahin books is that he's not afraid to pack them with equations, but you don't need a Ph.D. to enjoy them.
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