Games, Gods & Gambling: A History of Probability and Statistical Ideas

by Florence Nightingale David

The development of gambling techniques led to the beginning of modern statistics, and this absorbing history illustrates the science's rise with vignettes from the lives of Galileo, Fermat, Pascal, and others. Fascinating allusions to the classics, archaeology, biography, poetry, and fiction endow this volume with universal appeal. 1962 edition.

Genres: History, Mathematics, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1962

Reviews

[David Tybor · Rating 2 out of 5]

One nice thing about this book is its title. After reading it though, I think it should be called, "You can't judge a book from its title." But then it would have only one nice thing left, the chapter about John Graunt, the haberdasher / epidemiologist (which is going onto my reading list for MPH201 (the chapter, not the haberdasher)).

I did like this quote:
"No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work with, for those who will." - James Russell Lowell.

and this gem by Newton:
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered around me."