How to Expect the Unexpected by Kit Yates

How to Expect the Unexpected by Kit Yates

A "vivid, wide-ranging, and delightful guide" (bestselling author Tim Harford) for understanding how and why predictions go wrong, with practical tips to give you a better chance of getting them right 



How can you be 100 percent sure you will win a bet? Why did so many Pompeians stay put while Mount Vesuvius was erupting? Are you more likely to work in a kitchen if your last name is Baker? Ever since the dawn of human civilization, we have been trying to make predictions about what the world has in store for us. For just as long, we have been getting it wrong. In How to Expect the Unexpected, mathematician Kit Yates uncovers the surprising science that undergirds our predictions--and how we can use it to our advantage.    

From religious oracles to weather forecasters, and from politicians to economists, we are subjected to poor predictions all the time. Synthesizing results from math, biology, psychology, sociology, medicine, economic theory, and physics, Yates provides tools for readers to understand uncertainty and to recognize the cognitive biases that make accurate predictions so hard to come by.   

This book will teach you how and why predictions go wrong, help you to spot phony forecasts, and give you a better chance of getting your own predictions correct. 

Yates, Kit: - Kit Yates is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and codirector of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath. He completed his PhD in mathematics at the University of Oxford in 2011. His research demonstrates that mathematics can be used to describe all sorts of real-world phenomena: from embryo formation to locust swarming and from sleeping sickness to egg-shell patterning. His research into mathematical biology has been covered by the BBC, The Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, RTE, Scientific American and Reuters amongst others. Alongside his academic position, Kit is also an author and science communicator. The Math of Life and Death is his first book.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781541604933
ISBN 10	1541604938
Title	How to Expect the Unexpected
Author	Kit Yates
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Basic Books
Year published	2023-10-31
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.