Probability: An Introduction

By Samuel Goldberg

Book Overview

Excellent basic text covers set theory, probability theory for finite sample spaces, binomial theorem, probability distributions, means, standard deviations, probability function of binomial distribution, more. Includes 360 problems with answers for half.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486652521
• ISBN13: 9780486652528
• Release Date: January 1987
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent introduction to discrete probability

Although it does not cover continuous probability, this book will give you basic, important concepts and material needed for a college level undergraduate course in Mathematical Statistics. Be aware that even though there is no use of differential and integral calculus, the book still requires you to be able to learn the algebra of sets on your own if you do not already know it, to be good at algebraic manipulation, and to have a decent level of mathematical sophistication. Problems range from easy to extremely hard, but do not let it discourage you if you are unable to solve the difficult problems.

A useful little book

Okay it's dover so that means two things: 1) it's cheap (sometimes this equates to value, sometimes not) and 2) It's no the most current book in the world. Nevertheless, this is still a quite useful book.It is, as the name suggests, an intoduction to probability. Topic included are:1) Set theory- examples of sets and set notation, subsets, operatons on sets, algebra of sets, cartesian product sets (about 40 pages)2) Probability in finite sample spaces- samples spaces, events, probability of an event, some probability theorems, conditional probability, bayes' formula. independent events, independence of several events, independent trials, a probability model in genetics (about 85 pages)3) Sophisticated counting- counting techniques, binomial coefficients (about 25 pages)4) Random variables: Random variables and probability functions, mean of a random variable, variance and standard deviation, joint probability functions, means and variance of sums of random variables, covariance and correlation (about 100 pages)5) Binomial Distribution and some applications: bernoulli trials and binomial distribution, testing a hypothesis, an examples of decision making under uncertainty (about 40 pages)As you can clearly see, there is no normal distribution. Also the book has answers (not worked) to only odd numbered questions. The problems are quite tricky at times and do require some thought. The author's style is quite readable, showing the lessening of stiltedness that seem to afflict books of it's era. Mathematical formalism isn't at the forefront of what the author is trying to do: he's trying to teach you how it works, rather than how to prove it from first principles. This means it isn't a bad book for the beginner. No calculus is required. And obviously the meat of the book is on the treatment of random variables and typical descriptive measures: mean, variance, standard deviation, covariance, correlation. I have to admit that I enjoyed working through the book as it isn't enormous or burdened with irrelevant crapola. While I would have liked further treatement of the normal distribution, what this book gives is quite excellent for the price and size of the book. Paul Pfeiffer's 'concepts of probability Theory'(isbn 0486636771) makes a good continuation to this book if you are learning at your own pace, rather than inside a structured course. All in all, a good little book that offers good value and doesn't promise the world but fail to devliver: it promises an introduction and that's what you get: a basic introduction (though it requires some effort, so it perhaps isn't as introductory as it might seems- depends on your mathematical ability). If you're working with the normal distrubution or wanting a 'cookbook' on probability, however, look elsewhere. This book teaches more through exposition then by example.