Keywords
numeracy, statistics, probability, popular science, David Hand, Lásló Mérő
Abstract
David J. Hand. 2014. The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day (New York, NY: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0374175344.
Lásló Mérő. 2018. The Logic of Miracles: Making Sense of Rare, Really Rare, and Impossibly Rare Events (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press) 288 pp. ISBN: 978-0300224153.
David Hand and Lásló Mérő both grapple with the occurrence of seemingly impossible events in these two popular science books. In this comparative review, I describe the two books, and explain why I prefer Hand's treatment of the impossible.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.11.2.14
Recommended Citation
Tunstall, Samuel L.. "Calculus of the Impossible: Review of The Improbability Principle (2014) by David Hand and The Logic of Miracles (2018) by Lásló Mérő." Numeracy 11, Iss. 2 (2018): Article 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.11.2.14
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Included in
Applied Mathematics Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Statistics and Probability Commons
