Fluke: The Math and Myth of Coincidence

by Joseph Mazur

Overview

A mathematical guide to understanding why life can seem to be one big coincidence-and why the odds of just about everything are better than we would think.

What are the chances? This is the question we ask ourselves when we encounter the strangest and most seemingly impossible coincidences, like the woman who won the lottery four times or the fact that Lincoln's dreams foreshadowed his own assassination. But, when we look at coincidences mathematically, the odds are a lot better than any of us would have thought.

In Fluke, mathematician Joseph Mazur takes a second look at the seemingly improbable, sharing with us an entertaining guide to the most surprising moments in our lives. He takes us on a tour of the mathematical concepts of probability, such as the law of large numbers and the birthday paradox, and combines these concepts with lively anecdotes of flukes from around the world. How do you explain finding your college copy of Moby Dick in a used bookstore on the Seine on your first visit to Paris? How can a jury be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that DNA found at the scene of a heinous crime did not get there by some fluke? Should we be surprised if strangers named Maria and Francisco, seeking each other in a hotel lobby, accidentally meet the wrong Francisco and the wrong Maria, another pair of strangers also looking for each other? As Mazur reveals, if there is any likelihood that something could happen, no matter how small, it is bound to happen to someone at some time.

In Fluke, Mazur offers us proof of the inevitability of the sublime and the unexpected. He has written a book that will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered how all of the tiny decisions that happen in our lives add up to improbable wholes. A must-read for math enthusiasts and storytellers alike, Fluke helps us to understand the true nature of chance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465060955
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joseph Mazur is an emeritus professor of mathematics at Marlboro College, and the author of four other popular mathematics books, the most recent of which is the highly acclaimed Enlightening Symbols: A Short History of Mathematical Notation and Its Hidden Powers. Among his many honors is a Guggenheim fellowship. Mazur lives with his wife, Jennifer, in Marlboro, Vermont.

Table of Contents

Part 1: The Stories
1. Exceptional Moments
2. The Girl from Petrovka and Other Benign Coincidences
3. Meaningful Coincidences

Part 2: The Mathematics
4. What Are the Chances?
5. Bernoulli's Gift
6. Long Strings of Heads
7. Pascal's Triangle
8. The Problem with Monkeys

Part 3: The Analysis
9. Enormity of the World
10. The Stories of Chapter 2 Revisited

Part 4: The Head-Scratchers
11. Evidence
12. Discovery
13. Risk
14. Psychic Power
15. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Editorial Reviews

02/22/2016
Mazur (Euclid in the Rainforest), professor emeritus of mathematics at Marlboro College, succinctly tackles the math behind phenomena of chance and happenstance. He begins with a rundown of generic categories of coincidences—such as lost and found objects, precisely timed encounters, dreams that come true, and gambling luck or misfortune—illustrating each with surprising examples. Over the remainder of the book Mazur analyses the likelihood of these and other moments of chance, including the birthday problem—how many people must be in a room to have a 50% chance that two share a birthday—and the monkey question, which addresses whether a monkey randomly hitting keys would type all of Shakespeare’s works if given enough time. He explains the tools required for such analyses—the theories of large numbers, weak numbers, probability, and frequency distribution—in accessible language, complemented by sophisticated equations and graphics. Mazur also explores larger issues affected by events with small probabilities, among them risk in financial markets and the application of probability theory to DNA evidence. His discussion of DNA evidence is provocative, raising questions about the process. Mazur’s thoughtful tour reveals the explanatory power of probability theory in the larger world. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Always entertaining and frequently insightful, Fluke is never less than thought-provoking."
--Amir Alexander, Wall Street Journal


"Mazur gently dashes icy water on our sense of wonder, patiently doing the math to explain multiple lottery winners, 'remarkable' accidental scientific discoveries and wrongheaded government policy."
--Keith Blanchard, Wall Street Journal


"Mazur takes what could be difficult, abstruse subjects--probability and statistics--and makes them entertaining. The author draws examples and illustrations from a variety of fields--law enforcement, economics, the sciences--and, when he unavoidably gets into some fairly complicated mathematical discussions, he explains his terms and remembers that, for the most part, his readers aren't mathematicians. An ideal book, then, for the lay reader who is curious about the nature of coincidence."
--Booklist Online


"Well written, entertaining... an understandable introduction to probability for the layman."
--MAA.org


"Mazur's thoughtful tour reveals the explanatory power of probability theory in the larger world."
--Publishers Weekly

"By studying anecdotes, probability, the past, the present, and the connectivity of everything, Mazur finds proof of the inevitability of the sublime and inexplicable. If you've ever wondered how the decisions of seven billion people can add up to moments of coincidence, Mazur's careful and clear explanations are for you."
-UTNE Reader

"In Fluke, the author takes us on a marvelous guided tour of the world of the unlikely and the improbable. After reading Fluke, you will definitely come away with a deeper understanding of why wildly improbable coincidences may not be so improbable after all."
--Ronald Graham, Chief Scientist at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology


"A tour de force of masterful writing that weaves together simple and not-so-simple mathematical notions of probability and statistics into various intriguing coincidences from fact and fiction, explaining with nuance various strange phenomena. Mazur's book will teach you some of this mathematics, leaving you quite equipped to understand the role of chance in your life without resorting to magical thinking."
--Gizem Karaali, Editor, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics


"The chances are very slim that you'd ever read this blurb. A simple-minded calculation puts the odds at about 50,000 to one against. Yet... here you are. How weird is this seemingly far-fetched coincidence? Well, dear reader, you've picked up the right book to answer that question."
--Charles Seife, author of Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

"With charm and clarity, Joe Mazur leads us through the strange terrain of chance and surprise. He explains why apparently remarkable coincidences are usually more likely than we imagine, because we underestimate how large our world really is. Not so much probability theory, as improbability theory! A terrific read, and a welcome antidote to superstition and gullibility."
--Ian Stewart, author of Professor Stewart's Incredible Numbers


"Mazur has written a wonderfully insightful book. He shows how it is that our purely psychological expectations about what might happen in the real world, and our culturally acquired notions of order and disorder, often give us a completely false sense of the chance that something will, in fact, occur in the world outside."
Richard Lewontin, Professor of Biology Emeritus at Harvard University and author of The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change


"Clear, humorous, and grounded in history and culture, Fluke shows you why anything that can happen is bound to happen, sometime. But just as rainbows still thrill us when we parsed the physics, dissecting bizarre coincidences doesn't dilute our amazement. Mazur has accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of writing a book for everyone."
--Marjorie Senechal, Editor-in-Chief, The Mathematical Intelligencer

From the Publisher

2016-01-13
A mathematics romp through amazing coincidences that proves, naturally, that they are not amazing at all. Mazur (Emeritus, Mathematics/Marlboro Coll.; Enlightening Symbols: A Short History of Mathematical Notation and Its Hidden Powers, 2014, etc.) emphasizes two axioms: first, anything that's possible is guaranteed to happen (a monkey hammering at a keyboard will eventually type a line from Shakespeare); second, math itself explains many amazing coincidences. If 23 people gather, what are the odds that two share the same birth date? The answer: better than 50/50. Mazur begins with 10 categories of coincidences that can be explained mathematically (e.g., a woman who won multimillion-dollar lottery games four times)—or not. Historians dutifully write that Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his own death, but so do we all. Everyone has nightmares. There follows 70 pages on the actual mathematics of these experiences, explained clearly by the author. Science writers traditionally assure readers that no equations will disturb their text, but Mazur does not go along with that approach. While he does not go beyond high school algebra, readers who pay attention will learn the basics of probability, bell curves, standard deviations, hidden variables, and how to calculate the odds of a monkey typing Shakespeare. They are more likely to enjoy discussions of the reality behind his 10 categories and then scratch their heads over absorbing if only distantly relevant chapters that cast a critical eye on DNA evidence ("the general public mistakenly presumes that DNA evidence is the absolute proof of guilt or innocence, at least if it is not compromised by contamination"), extrasensory perception, stock market manipulations, and scientific breakthroughs. The best update of Darrell Huff's classic How to Lie with Statistics (1954) remains Gary Smith's Standard Deviations (2014), but readers willing to work will find that Mazur acquits himself quite well.

Kirkus Reviews