Chapters in probability (Q2904380)

This book grew out of a course on the history of mathematics given to middle school teachers in Chicago. Although initially just one week of the course was devoted to probability, the author's notes for that part of the course grew to include many times the amount of material initially indicated. The final result has been a thoroughgoing treatment of a large segment of elementary probability with a generous amount of historical material, including a good number of excerpts from the original books and papers on the subject. Part I of the book is ``Elementary probability'', and accounts for only the first 150 or so pages of the 550-page book. Beyond this, Part II devotes another 170 pages to the ``Law of large numbers'', where we find a thorough treatment of Bernoulli's theorem, the central limit theorem, errors, Chebyshev's inequality and more. Part III consists of several appendices: A. The calculator; Beyond the basics, which expands on the manual for the TI-83 Plus; B. Some mathematical extras; C. Philately; D. Tables (births, mortality, census figures, etc.); E. Recommended reading.NEWLINENEWLINEThe book would be an excellent text for a low to middle level university course on probability for mathematics/mathematics education majors (among others); one which would likely give students much interesting reading beyond the requirements of the course.