Natural Science 0208 - Encounters with Chance: Probability through Applications to Games, Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems

This course introduces students to foundational topics in probability through applications to games, puzzles, paradoxes, and problems. Included will be discussions of independence, discrete and continuous random variables, conditional probability, Bayes' Theorem, random walks, and the Law of Large Numbers. Along the way we will discover the important role that calculus plays in probability (though no knowledge of calculus is assumed), and we will see glimpses of more advanced topics such as the existence of different sizes of infinity and measure theory. Keywords:Probability, randomness, chance, games, math

Students should expect to spend 8 hours weekly on work and preparation outside of class time. Books: Title: The Pleasures of Probability Author: Richard Isaac ISBN: 978-1-4612-0819-8 Cost: $49.99