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This book was developed to address a need. Quantitative Literacy courses have been established in the mathematics curriculum for decades now. The students in these courses typically dislike and fear mathematics, and the result is often a class populated by many students that are unmotivated and uninterested in the material.
List of contents
1. Basic Discrete Probability
1.1. Elementary Set Theory
1.2. Sample Spaces
1.3. Events
1.4. Definition of Probability
1.5. Complimentary Events
1.6. Expected Value
1.7. Odds
2. Roulette
2.1. The Rules of the Game
2.2. Some Basic Probability Calculations
2.3. Roulette “Systems”
3. Conditional Probability and Independence
3.1. Definition of Conditional Probability
3.2. Law of Total Probability
3.3. Independent Events
3.4. The Monty Hall Problem
4. Craps
4.1. Rules of the Game
4.2. Analysis of the Shooter’s Game
4.3. Other Bets
5. Counting Large Sets: An Introduction to Combinatorics
5.1. Two Counting Rules
5.2. Permutations and Combinations
6. Poker
6.1. Poker Hands and their Probabilities
6.2. Video Poker
6.3. Texas Hold ‘Em
7. Lotteries and Keno
7.1. Lotteries and Powerball
7.2. Keno
8. Blackjack
8.1. Rules of the Game
8.2. Basic Blackjack Calculations
8.3. Card Counting
9. Farkle
9.1. Rules of the Game
9.2. Various Farkle Probability Calculations
9.3. Should You Risk Another Roll? The Probability of Farkling
10. An Introduction to Game Theory
10.1. Introduction and Basic Definitions
10.2. Zero-sum Games: Domination
10.3. Zero-sum Games: Saddle Points
10.4. Zero-sum Games: No Saddle Points
10.5. Solving 2 x 2 Zero-sum Games
10.6. A Simplified Poker Game
About the author
Mark Hunacek received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Rutgers University, and also acquired a wife who that year had also gotten a mathematics Ph.D. Faced with the familiar “two body problem”, which was more of an issue in 1978 than it is now, he went to law school and then spent almost three decades practicing law. After retiring from the practice of law, things came full circle and he was lucky enough to be offered a position in the mathematics department at Iowa State University, where, as one of his responsibilities, he redesigned and oversaw the two quantitative literacy courses offered there, one of which inspired this textbook. In 2021 he retired and became a Teaching Professor Emeritus.
Summary
This book was developed to address a need. Quantitative Literacy courses have been established in the mathematics curriculum for decades now. The students in these courses typically dislike and fear mathematics, and the result is often a class populated by many students that are unmotivated and uninterested in the material.
