| Collation |
xviii, 354 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
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text txt rdacontent |
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unmediated n rdamedia |
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volume nc rdacarrier |
| Note |
"A Chapman & Hall book" -- t.p. |
| Bibliog. |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 347-349) and index. |
| Contents |
Basic probability. Intrduction ; Of dice and men ; Probability ; The laws which govern us ; Poker hands versus batting orders ; Let's play for money ; Is that fair? ; The odds are against us ; Things vary ; Conditional expectation -- The game's afoot. Application to games ; Counting and probability in poker hands ; Roulette ; Craps ; Let's make a deal: the Monty Hall problem ; Carnival games ; Other casino games ; Backgammon -- Repeated play. Introduction ; Binomial coefficients ; The binomial distribution ; The Posisson distribution ; Streaks: are they real? ; Betting strategies ; The gambler's ruin -- Card tricks and more. Introduction ; The five-card trick ; The two-deck matching game ; More tricks : The paintball wars -- Dealing with data. Introduction ; Batting averages and Simpson's paradox ; NFL passer ratings ; Viewing data: simple graphs ; Confidence in our estimates ; Measuring differences in performance -- Testing and relationships. Introduction ; Suzuki versus Pujols ; I'll decide if I believe that ; Are the old adages true? ; How good are certain measurements? Arguing over outstanding performances ; A last look at comparisons -- Games and puzzles. Introduction ; Number arrays ; The Tower of Hanoi ; Instant insanity ; Lights out ; Peg games -- Combinatorial games. Introduction to combinatorial games ; Subtraction games ; Nim ; Games as digraphs ; Blue-red Hackenbush ; Green Hackenbush ; Games as numbers ; More about nimbers [sic] -- Appendix : Review of elementary set theory ; Standard normal distribution table ; Student's t-distribution ; Solutions to problems ; Selected even exercises. |
| Summary |
"Only requiring high school algebra, the text offers flexibility in choosing what material to cover in a basic mathematics course. It covers permutations in the two-deck matching game so derangements can be counted, introduces graphs to find matches when looking at extensions of the five-card trick, and studies lexicographic orderings and ideas of encoding for card tricks. The text also explores linear equations and weighted equations in the section on the NFL passer rating formula and presents graphing to show how data can be compared or displayed. For each topic, the author includes exercises based on real games and sports data" -- p. 4 of cover. |
| Subject |
Mathematical analysis.
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Problem solving -- Mathematical models.
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Mathematical recreations.
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Sports -- Mathematics.
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Gambling -- Mathematics.
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| ISBN |
9781439801635 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
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1439801630 |
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