Reasoning about Luck: Probability and Its Uses in Physics: Dover Books on Physics

Reasoning About Luck is a beautiful book. I have enjoyed reading it myself, I have encouraged curious high school students to read it, and I have used it in teaching first-year university students interested in a broad range of scientific disciplines. I have also recommended it to more advanced students in the biological sciences who need a refresher course in probability or physics more generally. Ambegaokar has found the right mix of mathematical precision and verbal playfulness, as delightful today as when I first encountered it twenty years ago. --William Bialek, John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics, Princeton University

This book introduces college students and other readers to the uses of probability and statistics in the physical sciences, focusing on thermal and statistical physics and touching upon quantum physics. Widely praised as beautifully written and thoughtful, Reasoning About Luck explains concepts in a way that readers can understand and enjoy, even students who are not specializing in science and those outside the classroom--only some familiarity with basic algebra is necessary. Attentive readers will come away with a solid grasp of many of the basic concepts of physics and some excellent insights into the way physicists think and work.

Vinay Ambegaokar is a Goldwin Smith Professor of Physics Emeritus at Cornell University. His honors include the 2015 John Bardeen Prize, awarded for theoretical research that substantially advanced our understanding of certain unique and fundamental features of superconductivity.

Dover (2017) republication of the edition published by Cambridge University Press, 1996.
www.doverpublications.com