Choice And Chance

Abstract

WE should think that not a few copies of the first edition of this work must have been purchased under the impression that it was an interesting story; and it is surprising that so neat and suggestive a title had not been long ago appropriated by some needy novelist. This work, however, is a very able elementary treatise on those puzzling branches of mathematics which treat of combinations permutations, and probabilities. The earlier chapters are quite within the comprehension of a schoolboy with a moderate knowledge of arithmetic; the appendices, which treat of distributions, derangements, the disadvantage of gambling, and a proof of the Binomial Theorem, founded purely on the doctrine of combinations, require some knowledge of algebra in the reader. So great is the clearness with which Mr. Whitworth states and explains the problems throughout, that it is almost impossible to misunderstand him. The appendix in which the disadvantage of gambling is demonstrated is very interesting; and often novel; and his explanation of the Petersburg problem is the most satisfactory which we have met.

Choice and Chance.

By the Rev. Wm. Allen Whitworth, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 2nd ed. Enlarged. 1870. (Deighton, Bell & Co.)