Uncertainty is everywhere. It exists in every thought about the future - the weather, the economy, the gender of an unborn child - even quantities we think we know, such as populations or the paths of planets, contain the possibility of error. It is no wonder that, throughout history, we have tried to create strictly defined areas of uncertainty - we prefer surprise parties to surprised asteroids.

Our mission to make the uncertain world certain began with reading omens in livers, tea leaves, and the stars. However, over the centuries, the desire for knowledge, competition, and the wish to become better fortunate led pioneering mathematicians and scientists to confine extreme uncertainties into tame probability distributions and statistical admonitions. But, even when unknown uncertainties became known, our pessimistic mindset led us to believe some problems were unsolvable and our intuition misled us.

Furthermore, as we realized how ubiquitous and diverse uncertainty is, we encountered chaos, quantum mechanics, and the limitations of our predictive capabilities. Bestselling author Professor Ian Stewart delves into the history and mathematics of uncertainty. Touching on gambling, probability, statistics, financial and weather forecasting, censuses, medical research, chaos, quantum physics, and climate change, he makes it clear that a reasonable probability is the only certainty.

Pages: 304, Publication Year: 0806, Dimensions: 13x13cm