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Conned Again, Watson! Cautionary Tales of Logic, Math, and Probability | 
| Author: Colin Bruce
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
Buy Used: $3.66
You Save: $12.34 (77%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 482985
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0738205893
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780738205892
ASIN: 0738205893
Publication Date: January 15, 2002
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Some people who think they hate math are lucky to learn that they actually just can't abide its often dry, abstract presentation. Physicist Colin Bruce turns math teaching on its head by using conflict, drama, and familiar characters to bring probability and game theory to vivid life in Conned Again, Watson! Cautionary Tales of Logic, Math, and Probability. Using short stories crafted in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he lets Sherlock Holmes guide Watson and his clients through elementary mathematical reasoning. This kind of thinking is growing more and more important as poll numbers, economic indicators, and scientific data find their way into the mainstream, and Bruce's gambit pays off handsomely for the reader. Delving into such arcana as normal distribution, Bayesian logic, and risk taking, the stories never dry up, even when presenting tables or graphs. Holmes's quick wit, Watson's patience, and their various friends' and clients' dubious decisions unite both to entertain and to illuminate tough but important problems. Even the cleverest numerophile will probably still find a nugget or two of hidden knowledge in the book, or at least a few new ways to explain statistical concepts to friends and students. The rest of us can relax, enjoy the tales, and come away a little bit tougher to con. --Rob Lightner
Product Description
In Conned Again, Watson!, Colin Bruce re-creates the atmosphere of the original Sherlock Holmes stories to shed light on an enduring truth: Our reliance on common sense-and ignorance of mathematics-often gets us into trouble. In these cautionary tales of greedy gamblers, reckless businessmen, and ruthless con men, Sherlock Holmes uses his deep understanding of probability, statistics, decision theory, and game theory to solve crimes and protect the innocent. But it's not just the characters in these well-crafted stories that are deceived by statistics or fall prey to gambling fallacies. We all suffer from the results of poor decisions. In this illuminating collection, Bruce entertains while teaching us to avoid similar blunders. From "The Execution of Andrews" to "The Case of the Gambling Nobleman," there has never been a more exciting way to learn when to take a calculated risk-and how to spot a scam.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
Sherlock Holmes stories on logic, maths & probability March 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Twelve short Sherlock Holmes stories challanging logic, probability, statistic, game theory, more or less relevant to daily life. The authors approach of telling the story seen through Holmes and Watson is brilliant (incl. the dialogue between the two). Some stories are a bit simple and boring while others were quite amazing. Example Chapter 7 illustrates the error of assuming that a well-defined ordering retlation must also define a unique hierarchy. In higher mathematics it is quite possible to have x greater than y, y greater than z, and yet z greater than x! Last but not least, the afterword is extremely useful where the author sheds more light on each chapter.
 probability and statistics taught through the eyes of a detective January 24, 2008
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
The author does a marvelous job of presenting Sherlock Holmes stories through the thought of Dr. Watson, very much in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However instead of simple detective mysteries each story has a probabilistic theme.
After reading the first couple of chapters I thought this is great for me but I am a statistician. Could a novice understand the complex explanations and story that enhances ones memory about the principles as the author suggests? I think so. The later chapters convince me.
There the author goes over the waiting time paradox, capture-recapture methods and other related problems in the chapter on the poor observer. The famous Monte Hall problem and the birthday problem are also covered and well explained through the eyes of Watson based on the work of Sherlock Holmes and his brother.
Great for a math-phobe like me. August 20, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I am frankly shocked by the negative reviews, although it could be that the reviewers are math-lovers who just find the stories too basic or something. For me, a relative novice to math thinking, the book is a delight. Bruce manages to capture much of the tone of the original Holmes books and works interesting math illustrations (some, to be fair, a little contrivedly) into the stories. Minus the math, the stories still have enough whimsy, flair, and character development to warrant reading them. Perhaps my expectations were so low for anything to do with a subject I avoid that "Conned Again" is getting all but a free pass from me, but I really enjoy this work and will look for more of Bruce's writing.
 "Conned by Whom, Watson?" June 6, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have read seven chapters of this book so far and I ask all readers of this book to beware! Even though the author Bruce Collins attempts to explain some math, probability and logic in pedagogical stories using Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, readers of this release of the book (2001) should be careful of errors. For example as explained on pages 72 & 73 have both Holmes and Watson made a mistake by saying or agreeing that there are six ways to get to the middle point of the diagram called "A Walk Along the Pier"? There may be six routes to get to that point labelled "6" but Holmes mentions flipping a coin 6 times (e.g. Head, Head, Head, Tail, Tail, Tail). For an equal number of heads and tails with six flips of a coin, wouldn't Watson get to the point labelled "20" (for 20 routes) on the diagram because there are 20 possible configurations of getting 3 heads and 3 tails (e.g. Head, Head, Head, Tail, Tail, Tail; Head, Head, Tail, Head, Tail, Tail;...Tail, Tail, Tail, Head, Head, Head etc)? Another example is in the story "The Case of the Martian Invasion" where Holmes is explaining a failure mode of a powered airplane by a "bird strike" (as in a flock of birds which could cause one or more engines to fail). Remember these stories take place around 1900 and the Wright Brothers have not yet had a sucessful powered airplane flight. Would Holmes be seriously considering multiple engine failure modes due to a "bird strike"?! Also, readers get introduced to a Reverend Dodgson as Lewis Carroll (writer of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland") in one of the earlier stories but in this story of the Martian invasion, readers get introduced to an Alexander Smith, designer of the Titanic! According to what I've looked up using Google, Alexander Carlisle and Thomas Andrews were designers of the Titanic. The captian of the ship, however, was Captain Smith (not Captain Alexander Smith)! So, do not assume you'll be getting necessarily an accurate history lesson. And what kind of thing is it for Holmes to say "...Love is all very well, Watson, but there comes a point where Darwin's laws must be left to take their course"! Do you think the author is trying to tease us? So too, another example occurs in the story called "Three Cases of Unfair Preferment" where a set of weirdly constructed dice are described; one die is colored red; another is colored black and another is colored white. It turns out that these dice are biased based on how they are made. Now, isn't "Watson" mistaken by saying "The red dice..." - should he say "The red die..." instead (p148)? Holmes goes on to describe how that in this case the red die has a higher probablity of winning over black; the black has a higher probability of winning over than white (per Holmes "5/9 of the time" as mentioned on p158) and how "white is better than red." He then compares these dice to the paper, rock ("stone") and scissors game. But is it fair, logically speaking, to compare the paper-rock-scissors game to these dice? Where are the set probabilities of a piece of paper winning over a rock (for example)? It's not a fair comparison because in the case of these dice, even though "black wins over white," white can still win over black albeit with a smaller probability. But can you imagine, for example, a piece of a paper winning over a scissor (some of the time)? It doesn't go both ways. So, is Holmes wrong? Thus after reading this, let me ask you if you would think that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are making these kind of errors? Perhaps the reader himself should ask, who is really doing the conning?
Holmes as a master educator in logic and deduction May 25, 2004
26 out of 27 found this review helpful
Some time ago, Lamarr Widmer, the editor of the problem column of "Journal of Recreational Mathematics" submitted a review of this book to me, in my capacity as book reviews editor of JRM. As soon as I read the first two paragraphs of the review, I knew that I had to read the book. Sherlock Holmes is without question the greatest character to appear in fiction, the style of the stories still inspire many spin-offs. In the science fiction television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation", the Holmes style of problem solving is used in many episodes. This book presents several stories where Holmes solves problems with a mathematical theme. Each of them is a delight to read and I did a good deal of head scratching as I tried to anticipate the solution to the puzzle.
My favorite story in the collection is "The Case of the Martian Invasion", which, set at the turn of the twentieth century, covers the possibility of heavier-than-air flying machines, "Martian" images on the Moon, crop circles and secret messages being embedded in biblical verse. The proponent of a Martian invasion believes that heavier-than-air machines are possible, putting forward the fundamental principle of using complex machines. That is of course redundancy, where multiple engines are placed on the aircraft in such a way that it can fly with any subset above a certain size. The explanation of the "secret messages" is easy, nothing more than a simple exercise in the probability of the frequency of the appearance of letters and looking hard enough.
The other stories were nearly as interesting and cover many areas of life, the probability of various events being the most common scenario. Game theory and decision theory is also used to solve the cases brought before the greatest detective of all time. Although they are set in the time of Holmes, the events described in the puzzles can still be applied to life in the twenty-first century.
I found this to be one of the best demonstrations of logical deduction based on sound mathematical principles that I have ever seen. Although he is constantly praised for his skill in logical deduction, Holmes also possesses another talent, that of a master teacher.Published in the recreational mathematics newsletter, reprinted with permission.
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