At its core, economics is about making decisions. In the history of economic thought, great intellectual prowess has been exerted toward devising exquisite theories of optimal decision making in situations of constraint, risk, and scarcity. Yet not all of our choices are purely logical, and so there is a longstanding tension between those emphasizing the rational and irrational sides of human behavior. One strand develops formal models of rational utility maximizing while the other draws on what behavioral science has shown about our tendency to act irrationally. In Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty, George G. Szpiro offers a new narrative of the three-century history of the study of decision making, tracing how crucial ideas have evolved and telling the stories of the thinkers who shaped the field. Szpiro examines economics from the early days of theories spun from anecdotal evidence to the rise of a discipline built around elegant mathematics through the past half century's interest in describing how people actually behave. Considering the work of Locke, Bentham, Jevons, Walras, Friedman, Tversky and Kahneman, Thaler, and a range of other thinkers, he sheds light on the vast scope of discovery since Bernoulli first proposed a solution to the St. Petersburg Paradox. Presenting fundamental mathematical theories in easy-to-understand language, Risk, Choice, and Uncertainty is a revelatory history for readers seeking to grasp the grand sweep of economic thought.

Sir Walter Raleigh wollte wissen, wie Kanonenkugeln in einem Schiff am dichtesten gestapelt werden koennen. Der Astronom Johannes Kepler lieferte im Jahr 1611 die Antwort: genau so, wie Gemusehandler ihre Orangen und Tomaten aufstapeln. Noch war dies lediglich eine Vermutung - erst 1998 gelang dem amerikanischen Mathematiker Thomas Hales mit Hilfe von Computern der mathematische Beweis. Einer der besten Autoren fur popularwissenschaftliche Mathematik beschreibt auf faszinierende Art und Weise ein beruhmtes mathematisches Problem und dessen Loesung.

Der Band erläutert die mathematischen Hintergründe der demokratischen Wahlsysteme und führt dabei zugleich in ihre Geschichte ein. Die Mehrheitswahl und die Zuteilung von Sitzen im Parlament etwa werfen mathematische Fragen auf, deren Lösung überraschend schwierig ist. Wie viele Sitze bekommt zum Beispiel eine Partei, die 23,6 Prozent der Stimmen erhielt? Die Erklärung beginnt in der Antike, führt über mittelalterliche Kirchenherren, Helden der Französischen Revolution und amerikanischen Gründungsväter bis zu heutigen Nobelpreisträgern.

The amazing story of one of the greatest math problems of all time and the reclusive genius who solved it
In the tradition of "Fermatas Enigma" and "Prime Obsession," George Szpiro brings to life the giants of mathematics who struggled to prove a theorem for a century and the mysterious man from St. Petersburg, Grigory Perelman, who fi nally accomplished the impossible. In 1904 Henri PoincarA(c) developed the PoincarA(c) Conjecture, an attempt to understand higher-dimensional space and possibly the shape of the universe. The problem was he couldnat prove it. A century later it was named a Millennium Prize problem, one of the seven hardest problems we can imagine. Now this holy grail of mathematics has been found.
Accessibly interweaving history and math, Szpiro captures the passion, frustration, and excitement of the hunt, and provides a fascinating portrait of a contemporary noble-genius.