July 31, 2010

A son and mother writing team - Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan give an entertaining mathematical and historical trip through chance and randomness: Chances Are... Adventures in Probability.

You'll learn why you can't win at Roulette, but you can at Blackjack - if you don't get kicked out of the casino for beating the house. Chapter 5, "Securing," is about insurance. As the authors put it, insurance is "the even re-distribution of risk: dividing unbearable trouble into bearable doses." They take us from the earliest form of insurance - having many children - to the later-day problem of dealing with small numbers - Lloyd's insuring satellites for only one customer. It's interesting reading, from insurers making life and travel safer by enforcing standards for steam boilers, to building standards to workplace safety. It doesn't get into the craziness of a soft insurance market, but it's a treasure of interesting information, even if like me, you didn't do well in freshman algebra.

George Rothert