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Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 031644071X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
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Book Description
From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.
Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 031644071X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Get Book Here
Book Description
From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.
Author: William Faizi McCants
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250080908
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
A comprehensive history of ISIS based on insider accounts and secret communications few outsiders have seen
Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Oneworld
ISBN: 9781786077561
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
How do you predict something that has never happened before? There's a useful calculation being employed by Wall Street, Silicon Valley and maths professors all over the world, and it predicts that the human species will become extinct in 760 years. Unfortunately, there is disagreement over how to apply the formula, and some argue that we might only have twenty years left. Originally devised by British clergyman Thomas Bayes, the theorem languished in obscurity for two hundred years before being resurrected as the lynchpin of the digital economy. With brief detours into archaeology, philology, and overdue library books, William Poundstone explains how we can use it to predict pretty much anything. What is the chance that there are multiple universes? How long will Hamilton run? Will the US stock market continue to perform as well this century as it has for the last hundred years? And are we really all doomed?
Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 031619297X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 229
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Book Description
You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of America's best companies, you need to have an answer to this and other puzzling questions. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? guides readers through the surprising solutions to dozens of the most challenging interview questions. The book covers the importance of creative thinking, ways to get a leg up on the competition, what your Facebook page says about you, and much more. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? is a must-read for anyone who wants to succeed in today's job market.
Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786072858
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Never before have we had so much information at our fingertips. You might think that we are better-informed than ever, but there’s one thing we can’t ask Google: ‘What should I be googling?’ The way we consume information in the digital age has been blamed for driving political polarisation and leaving us unable to agree on basic facts. It’s also making us stupider. Personalised news feeds and social media echo chambers narrow our potential knowledge base. By now, we don’t even know what we don’t know. In Head in the Cloud, William Poundstone investigates the true worth of knowledge. An entertaining manifesto underpinned by big data analysis and illustrated by eye-opening anecdotes, it reveals the surprising benefits of broadening your horizons and provides an unnerving look at the consequences of being ill-informed.
Author: William Poundstone
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
ISBN: 0316228087
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
A practical guide to outguessing everything, from multiple-choice tests to the office football pool to the stock market. People are predictable even when they try not to be. William Poundstone demonstrates how to turn this fact to personal advantage in scores of everyday situations, from playing the lottery to buying a home. Rock Breaks Scissors is mind-reading for real life. Will the next tennis serve go right or left? Will the market go up or down? Most people are poor at that kind of predicting. We are hard-wired to make bum bets on "trends" and "winning streaks" that are illusions. Yet ultimately we're all in the business of anticipating the actions of others. Poundstone reveals how to overcome the errors and improve the accuracy of your own outguessing. Rock Breaks Scissors is a hands-on guide to turning life's odds in your favor.
Author: Nick Bostrom
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113671099X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ("How many universes are there?", "Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life?"); evolutionary theory ("How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?"); the problem of time's arrow ("Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?"); quantum physics ("How can the many-worlds theory be tested?"); game-theory problems with imperfect recall ("How to model them?"); even traffic analysis ("Why is the 'next lane' faster?"). Anthropic Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.
Author: Piers Steel
Publisher: Random House Canada
ISBN: 0307366383
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322
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Book Description
DON'T WAIT TO READ THIS BOOK: The world's leading expert on procrastination uses his groundbreaking research to offer understanding on a matter that bedevils us all. Writing with humour, humanity and solid scientific information reminiscent of Stumbling on Happiness and Freakonomics, Piers Steel explains why we knowingly and willingly put off a course of action despite recognizing we'll be worse off for it. For those who surf the Web instead of finishing overdue assignments, who always say diets start tomorrow, who stay up late watching TV to put off going to sleep, The Procrastination Equation explains why we do what we do—or in this case don't—and why in Western societies we're in the midst of an escalating procrastination epidemic. Dr. Piers Steel takes on the myths and misunderstandings behind procrastination and motivation. With accessible prose and the benefits of new scientific research, he provides insight into why we procrastinate even though the result is that we are less happy, healthy, and even wealthy. Who procrastinates and why? How many ways, big and small, do we procrastinate? How can we stop doing it? The reasons are part cultural, part psychological, part biological. And, with a million new ways to distract ourselves in the digitized world, more of us are potentially damaging ourselves by putting things off. But Steel not only analyzes the factors that weigh us down but the things that motivate us—including understanding the value of procrastination.
Author: Porter Fox
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316460931
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302
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Book Description
One man’s “curiously thrilling joyride” of travelogue, history, and climatology, across a planet on the brink of cataclysmic transformation (Donovan Hohn). As the planet warms, winter is shrinking. In the last fifty years, the Northern Hemisphere lost a million square miles of spring snowpack and in the US alone, snow cover has been reduced by 15-30%. On average, winter has shrunk by a month in most northern latitudes. In this deeply researched, beautifully written, and adventure-filled book, journalist Porter Fox travels along the edge of the Northern Hemisphere's snow line to track the scope of this drastic change, and how it will literally change everything—from rapid sea level rise, to fresh water scarcity for two billion people, to massive greenhouse gas emissions from thawing permafrost, and a half dozen climate tipping points that could very well spell the end of our world. This original research is animated by four harrowing and illuminating journeys—each grounded by interviews with idiosyncratic, charismatic experts in their respective fields and Fox's own narrative of growing up on a remote island in Northern Maine. Timely, atmospheric, and expertly investigated, The Last Winter will showcase a shocking and unexpected casualty of climate change—that may well set off its own unstoppable warming cycle.
Author: Trevor Davis Lipscombe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192594001
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 150
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Book Description
How fast can you calculate? Would you like to be faster? This book presents the time honored tricks and tips of calculation, from a fresh perspective, to boost the speed at which you can add — whether a couple of numbers, or columns so long an accountant may faint. Find out how to subtract, multiply, divide, and find square roots more quickly. What's more, this book gives suggestions for how to find answers that are “good enough” for tricky tasks like dividing by 17. It includes brand new ways to multiply and divide irrational numbers such as pi, e, the square root of 2, and the golden ratio. It has sections devoted to ancient mathematics, and the techniques we can borrow from previous and other cultures, in order to calculate more quickly. Examples, some serious, some fun, come from everyday life or from history — like hot dog eating competitions, the Vatican's cricket team, the molecular weight of the molecule with the world's longest name, and the amount of people taken by Henry VIII to arguably history's biggest party, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. In an age of timed multiple-choice questions, the swifter you can sum, or rule out wrong answers, the better you will do. If you love to play with numbers, this book will be recreational reading. And if you ever wonder whether simple arithmetic problems can crop up in everyday life, this book provides a fresh perspective.
