The coin toss is really just a metaphor for a random event that has only two possible outcomes. The actual tossing of a real coin is just one way to realize such an event. There are many examples of questions that are equivalent to a coin toss. For example: Will the stock market close up or down tomorrow? Will a die roll come up with an even or odd number? Will we make contact with extraterrestrials within the next ten years? Will a car drive by in the next minute? Will tomorrow be sunny or cloudy? Will my medical test result be negative or positive? Will I enjoy this movie? Will the next joke be funny? Will the Earth's average temperature go up next year?Because a coin toss is equivalent to such a wide variety of questions, the results in this book are widely applicable.Because the coin toss is the simplest random event you can imagine, many questions about coin tossing can be asked and answered in great depth. The simplicity of the coin toss also opens the road to more advanced probability theories dealing with events with an infinite number of possible outcomes.This book is very mathematical. Some knowledge of calculus, discrete math, and generating functions is helpful to get the most out of it. A review of discrete math is provided in the index,

The coin toss is to probability theory what the hydrogen atom is to quantum mechanics. It is the simplest random event that you can imagine. There are only two possible outcomes: heads or tails. This simplicity means that many questions about coin tossing can be asked and answered in great depth, serving as a gateway for exploring probability and statistics, and a foundation for understanding many kinds of probability distributions. This book is an update to the author's original coin toss book (The Coin Toss: Probabilities and Patterns), expanding on run distributions and statistics, as well as a new chapter containing 26 problems and solutions. The page count has increased by over 40 percent. The book contains material for both the beginning student and the advanced researcher. We suspect that the beginner will find some of the material quite difficult and not accessible on a first reading. This is a book that needs to be read more than once. There is more material here than anyone could absorb on a first reading. We hope that researchers on the other hand find the book to be a valuable reference and a stimulus for new research.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning magazine’s stories of mathematical explorations show that inspiration strikes haphazardly, revealing surprising solutions and exciting discoveries—with a foreword by James Gleick These stories from Quanta Magazine map the routes of mathematical exploration, showing readers how cutting-edge research is done, while illuminating the productive tension between conjecture and proof, theory and intuition. The stories show that, as James Gleick puts it in the foreword, “inspiration strikes willy-nilly.” One researcher thinks of quantum chaotic systems at a bus stop; another suddenly realizes a path to proving a theorem of number theory while in a friend's backyard; a statistician has a “bathroom sink epiphany” and discovers the key to solving the Gaussian correlation inequality. Readers of The Prime Number Conspiracy, says Quanta editor-in-chief Thomas Lin, are headed on “breathtaking intellectual journeys to the bleeding edge of discovery strapped to the narrative rocket of humanity's never-ending pursuit of knowledge.” Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, Quanta is the only popular publication that offers in-depth coverage of the latest breakthroughs in understanding our mathematical universe. It communicates mathematics by taking it seriously, wrestling with difficult concepts and clearly explaining them in a way that speaks to our innate curiosity about our world and ourselves. Readers of this volume will learn that prime numbers have decided preferences about the final digits of the primes that immediately follow them (the “conspiracy” of the title); consider whether math is the universal language of nature (allowing for “a unified theory of randomness”); discover surprising solutions (including a pentagon tiling proof that solves a century-old math problem); ponder the limits of computation; measure infinity; and explore the eternal question “Is mathematics good for you?” Contributors Ariel Bleicher, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Kevin Hartnett, Erica Klarreich, Thomas Lin, John Pavlus, Siobhan Roberts, Natalie Wolchover Copublished with Quanta Magazine

This is a book of elementary probability theory that includes a chapter on algorithmic randomness. It rigorously presents definitions and theorems in computation theory, and explains the meanings of the theorems by comparing them with mechanisms of the computer, which is very effective in the current computer age.Random number topics have not been treated by any books on probability theory, only some books on computation theory. However, the notion of random number is necessary for understanding the essential relation between probability and randomness. The field of probability has changed very much, thus this book will make and leave a big impact even to expert probabilists.Readers from applied sciences will benefit from this book because it presents a very proper foundation of the Monte Carlo method with practical solutions, keeping the technical level no higher than 1st year university calculus.

Crypto 2001, the 21st Annual Crypto conference, was sponsored by the Int- national Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) in cooperation with the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Security and Privacy and the Computer Science Department of the University of California at Santa Barbara. The conference received 156 submissions, of which the program committee selected 34 for presentation; one was later withdrawn. These proceedings contain the revised versions of the 33 submissions that were presented at the conference. These revisions have not been checked for correctness, and the authors bear full responsibility for the contents of their papers. The conference program included two invited lectures. Mark Sherwin spoke on, \Quantum information processing in semiconductors: an experimentalist’s view." Daniel Weitzner spoke on, \Privacy, Authentication & Identity: A recent history of cryptographic struggles for freedom." The conference program also included its perennial \rump session," chaired by Stuart Haber, featuring short, informal talks on late{breaking research news. As I try to account for the hours of my life that ?ew o to oblivion, I realize that most of my time was spent cajoling talented innocents into spending even more time on my behalf. I have accumulated more debts than I can ever hope to repay. As mere statements of thanks are certainly insu cient, consider the rest of this preface my version of Chapter 11.

Sick of being broke? You want to acquire wealth? It is easier than you think, but you may have to violate a few standard rules. In his thirty-one-year career as a journalist, the author collected an average annual salary of $24,800. He, nonetheless, became a millionaire by violating some commonly accepted rules: he bought company stock, he shunned annuities, and he collected Social Security as soon as he could. He also did well with other investments. In Play the Percentages, he shares his insights and research with you.