Dueling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers

Another belated notice, but hey, if the publishers don't send 'em, we can't review 'em. Sometimes we aren't even aware they exist! We never saw the hardcover edition of this one; here is the paperback, though, with an updated preface.

OK. Paul Nahin is the author of An Imaginary Tale: the story of the square root of -1, reviewed on Read This! several years ago. Ed Sandifer found it fascinating but demanding: "Like complex numbers themselves, this book has two parts. The first half of Nahin's book is a pleasant and anecdotal introduction to complex numbers, full of ideas and stories that are seldom seen in the popular literature. The second half requires a good deal more concentration, and, appropriately, leads us into some greater complexities."

Nahin's Dueling Idiots and Other Probability Puzzlers is also a blend of the pleasant and anecdotal and the more technical, but the mix is more uniform. The book is a collection of puzzles and problems in probability. There are 21 problems, from "How to Ask an Embarassing Question" (how to get honest answers to a question that people may be embarassed to answer truthfully) to "When Theory Fails, There is Always the Computer" (simulate away!). Each problem is stated in a short essay. The solutions of the problems follow, also embedded in short essays. In all, stating and explaining the problems takes 80 pages, and the solutions use up 94 pages. At the back of the book, there is a longer essay on "random" number generators. There are also many pages of program listings for the many MATLAB programs the author uses.

Nahin is an engineer, and it shows. The approach and the problems are practical and down-to-earth. There are lots of formulas and equations, so this is not really a book for the mythical "general" reader, but it is a book that people who aren't afraid of mathematics and who like problems will enjoy.

Fernando Q. Gouvêa is the editor of MAA Reviews.