The subtitle, “How Randomness Rules Our Lives,” says it all as this Cal Tech physicist shows how our minds naturally try to impose order, pattern, and rational explanations (i.e. heuristic) on a random world. Drawing on the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky  and citing examples from “Let’s Make a Deal” to Max Lerner’s Yale experiments with pain and reward, the author provides a humorous, well-written and enlightening history of mathematics, probability (given the odds of an event, how likely is something to happen) and statistics (given the results, what was the real likelihood?). Major figures and concepts include:

• Availability bias
• Law of the sample space (Geralmo Cardano 16^th Century)
• Analysis of contingency
• Mathematics of expectations (Blaise Pascal 17^th Century)
  • Pascal: Triangle and wager
  • Benford’s Law
• Disparity between probability and observations (Newton-Liebniz 17^th Century)
  • Sequence, series, limits—Calculus
• Golden Theorem and trial (Bernoulli)
  • Law of Large Numbers, and weak laws
• Specificity and sensitivity
• Gambler’s fallacy
• Theory of conditional probability (Thomas Bayer 18^th Century)
• Inversion error in prosecutor’s fallacy (LaPlace 18^th Century)
• Mathematical theory of measurement
  • Random error
  • Standard deviation, variance, correlation coefficient
  • Chi square
  • Error law—bell-shaped curve
• Theory of randomness (Frances Galton 19^th Century)
  • Central limit theorem
  • Law of large numbers
  • Regression toward the mean
• Statistical physics (Maxwell, Boltzman, Einstein)
• Heuristics
  • Hot hand fallacy
  • Sharpshooter effect
  • Confirmation bias
• Normal accident theory

What you can control is the number of times which you act upon randomness thinking that you are being rational!