Probability

Rating:
Summary: A disaster!
Review: A horrible book. The text is convoluted and never clear, the exercise problems are completely outside the subject matter of the chapters, the chapters themselves are hardly explanatory (you get two-four paragraphs of "whats" and maybe three examples total, and folks these chapters are meant to cover a lot of ground), and there is hardly any explanation as to WHY this stuff works. A pointless book that can only be used in conjunction to a very well taught class. This book will NEVER teach you anything by itself. I cannot see anyone who learns through this book being able to perform this math after a couple of years, it is a clear book for monkey-see-monkey-does-monkey-has-no-clue-what-went-on-but-got-the-right-answer math.

Rating:
Summary: Uundoubtedly the best elementary probability book written
Review: After reading about 15 books involving elementary probability theory, including those written by Hoel, Port, and Stone (which my prof. unfortunately used for my class) and also Sheldon Ross, I came to the conclusion that Jim Pitman's Probability book is the best informative and intuitive book. It does not clutter the pages with needless notation that gets beginning students confused and more often than not intimidated. Being a student at UCBerkeley, I would like to praise Prof. Pitman on creating and excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: Great for "applied" types like me
Review: I would guess all the intensely negative reviews are from "pure-math" types. But, if you need to understand how to apply probability to some real-world problem, this book is for you.

I have never encountered such an easy-to-read description of probability. Also, there are absolutely great, intuitive examples which are non-trivial and easily extended. I completely disagree that this book encourages memorization -- rather, there are many examples which give both an intuitive/thinking-about-it solution and a formulaic solution.

Also, there are easy-to-find "rules" for probablisitic-type functions and operations which are very clearly explained and accompanied with non-trivial examples.

The notation may be a little clunky, but it is very easy to find the definitions and the index is reasonably complete. Also, there are several valuable appendicies. Oh, and there are solutions to odd-numbered excercises and solutions to mock-exams. What's not to like?

I would recommend this book to those who need to know probability for their non-pure-math discipline (i.e. physics, engieering, life sciences, etc.) but can't afford to invest the time in a full course (although I'm sure a course which uses this book would be a great asset, as well).