This updated edition of Ross's classic bestseller provides an introduction to elementary probability theory and stochastic processes, and shows how probability theory can be applied to the study of phenomena in fields such as engineering, computer science, management science, the physical and social sciences, and operations research. With the addition of several new sections relating to actuaries, this text is highly recommended by the Society of Actuaries.This book now contains a new section on compound random variables that can be used to establish a recursive formula for computing probability mass functions for a variety of common compounding distributions; a new section on hiddden Markov chains, including the forward and backward approaches for computing the joint probability mass function of the signals, as well as the Viterbi algorithm for determining the most likely sequence of states; and a simplified approach for analyzing nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. There are also additional results on queues relating to the conditional distribution of the number found by an M/M/1 arrival who spends a time t in the system; inspection paradox for M/M/1 queues; and M/G/1 queue with server breakdown. Furthermore, the book includes new examples and exercises, along with compulsory material for new Exam 3 of the Society of Actuaries.This book is essential reading for professionals and students in actuarial science, engineering, operations research, and other fields in applied probability.

    Contributors include Steven Weinberg, Peter Galison, John Maynard Smith, and Frank Wilczek.

    Historian Jacqueline Stedall shows that mathematical ideas are far from being fixed, but are adapted and changed by their passage across periods and cultures. The book illuminates some of the varied contexts in which people have learned, used, and handed on mathematics, drawing on fascinating case studies from a range of times and places, including early imperial China, the medieval Islamic world, and nineteenth-century Britain. By drawing out some common threads, Stedall provides an introduction not only to the mathematics of the past but to the history of mathematics as a modern academic discipline.

    Kurt Giidel maintained, and offered detailed proof, that in any arithmetic system, even in elementary parts of arithmetic, there are propositions which cannot be proved or disproved within the system. It is thus uncertain that the basic axioms of arithmetic will not give rise to contradictions. The repercussions of this discovery are still being felt and debated in 20th-century mathematics.The present volume reprints the first English translation of Giidel's far-reaching work. Not only does it make the argument more intelligible, but the introduction contributed by Professor R. B. Braithwaite (Cambridge University}, an excellent work of scholarship in its own right, illuminates it by paraphrasing the major part of the argument.This Dover edition thus makes widely available a superb edition of a classic work of original thought, one that will be of profound interest to mathematicians, logicians and anyone interested in the history of attempts to establish axioms that would provide a rigorous basis for all mathematics. Translated by B. Meltzer, University of Edinburgh. Preface. Introduction by R. B. Braithwaite.

    

    Rucker acquaints us with Godel's rotating universe, in which it is theoretically possible to travel into the past, and explains an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which billions of parallel worlds are produced every microsecond. It is in the realm of infinity, he maintains, that mathematics, science, and logic merge with the fantastic. By closely examining the paradoxes that arise from this merging, we can learn a great deal about the human mind, its powers, and its limitations.Using cartoons, puzzles, and quotations to enliven his text, Rucker guides us through such topics as the paradoxes of set theory, the possibilities of physical infinities, and the results of Godel's incompleteness theorems. His personal encounters with Godel the mathematician and philosopher provide a rare glimpse at genius and reveal what very few mathematicians have dared to admit: the transcendent implications of Platonic realism.

     This top-selling, theorem-proof text presents a careful treatment of the principal topics of linear algebra, and illustrates the power of the subject through a variety of applications. It emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between linear transformations and matrices, but states theorems in the more general infinite-dimensional case where appropriate.

    With it has come vast amounts of data in a variety of fields such as medicine, biology, finance, and marketing. The challenge of understanding these data has led to the development of new tools in the field of statistics, and spawned new areas such as data mining, machine learning, and bioinformatics. Many of these tools have common underpinnings but are often expressed with different terminology. This book describes the important ideas in these areas in a common conceptual framework. While the approach is statistical, the emphasis is on concepts rather than mathematics. Many examples are given, with a liberal use of color graphics. It should be a valuable resource for statisticians and anyone interested in data mining in science or industry. The book's coverage is broad, from supervised learning (prediction) to unsupervised learning. The many topics include neural networks, support vector machines, classification trees and boosting—the first comprehensive treatment of this topic in any book. Trevor Hastie, Robert Tibshirani, and Jerome Friedman are professors of statistics at Stanford University. They are prominent researchers in this area: Hastie and Tibshirani developed generalized additive models and wrote a popular book of that title. Hastie wrote much of the statistical modeling software in S-PLUS and invented principal curves and surfaces. Tibshirani proposed the Lasso and is co-author of the very successful An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Friedman is the co-inventor of many data-mining tools including CART, MARS, and projection pursuit.

    Sacred Geometry offers an accessible way of understanding how that connection is revealed in nature and the arts. Over the centuries, temple builders have relied on magic numbers to shape sacred spaces, astronomers have used geometry to calculate holy seasons, and philosophers have observed the harmony of the universe in the numerical properties of music. By showing how the discoveries of mathematics are manifested over and over again in biology and physics, and how they have inspired the greatest works of art, this illuminating study reveals the universal principles that link us to the infinite.