Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do

WHAT ARE THE ODDS YOU'LL WIN THE LOTTERY?How long will your kids wait in line at Disney World?Who decides that "standardized tests" are fair?Why do highway engineers build slow-moving ramps?What does it mean, statistically, to be an "Average Joe"?NUMBERS RULE YOUR WORLD In the popular tradition of eye-opening bestsellers like Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, and Super Crunchers, this fascinating book from renowned statistician and blogger Kaiser Fung takes you inside the hidden world of facts and figures that affect you every day, in every way.These are the statistics that rule your life, your job, your commute, your vacation, your food, your health, your money, and your success. This is how engineers calculate your quality of living, how corporations determine your needs, and how politicians estimate your opinions. These are the numbers you never think about-even though they play a crucial role in every single aspect of your life.What you learn may surprise you, amuse you, or even enrage you. But there's one thing you won't be able to deny:Numbers Rule Your World..."For those who have anxiety about how organization data-mining is impacting their world, Kaiser Fung pulls back the curtain to reveal the good and the bad of predictive analytics." --Ian Ayres,Yale professor and author ofSuper Crunchers: Why Thinking By Numbers is the New Way to Be Smart"A book that engages us with stories that a journalist would write, the compelling stories behind the stories as illuminated by the numbers, and the dynamics that the numbers reveal." --John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS Institute