No comments about To Talk of Many Things: An Autobiography.

5 comments about Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters.

1. This is the most painstakingly objective attempt I have ever seen to level the playing field when comparing players across eras. The criticisms that have been levelled against it are unjustified. First, the complaint is made that only batting averages are being considered, not on base percentage or hitting for power (slugging average). In the first place, that's not entirely true- he also runs an analaysis of on base percentages, and devotes a separate chapter to this - leaving me to wonder if the one critic who blasted the author for not considering on base percentages has even read the book. Secondly, the book is about batting averages, so of course the main focus is on -batting averages. Thirdly, another book will be forthcoming from the author on slugging averages.
   
   The other criticism - that the book is "for nerds only" - is just an indication of who the target audience is. Not every book is written for everybody. If you like baseball and are a stats junkie and like to argue about this player being better than that player, then this book is for you. If you don't like baseball and aren't a stats junkie and don't like such arguments - then the book is NOT for you. For what it is - comparing batting averages and on base percentages of different players from different eras - it is the best of its kind.



2. This is an interesting look at how to adjust for batting averages and compare players throughout baseball history. Schell uses a few methods to adjust the raw batting averages, such as adjusting for late career declines (he only uses the first 8,000 at bats), adjusting for eras, adjusting for league talent, and adjusting for home parks. Although these techniques are described in detail, I'm afraid most people won't appreciate it. The results of this book could have been written in a 5 page essay, but Schell decides to explain exactly how he went about the process. This is fine if you do care about the details, but not if you don't...so keep that in mind. I rated the book based on thinking the reader is interested in those details.
   
   The other problem with the book is simply the topic. In this day and age, we understand that batting averages isn't the best measure of a hitter's contributions. Slugging percentage and on-base percentage are far more important. Schell does add a chapter on OBP near the end of the book. I suspect Schell understands this too as I see he has written a second book on Baseball's All-Time Sluggers. In Baseball's All-Time Best Hitters, he ranks Tony Gwynn as the best hitter of all-time. He defines hitter as one that gets hits. But the best hitter is not the best batter nor the best baseball player, so to me, this is almost a moot debate. Still, I appreciated the detail of how a statistician goes about looking at this issue. If you appreciate that kind of stuff, get this book. If not, avoid it.



3. Of course on-base and slugging percentages are much better measures of a hitter's worth, but that's not the author's point. He wants to take a particular statistic and show how it should be interpreted/reinterpreted, given the vagaries of time, location, etc. He could easily have chosen on-base, slugging, OPS, whatever, but batting average traditionally is the first one everyone looks at, as ill-informed as that may be. Implied is that the same arguments can be used for any of the other statistics. (And he does so, briefly providing the results.)



4. Most baseball fans like statistics, so it should not be a disappointment to them to find out that this is an elementary statistics book where the statistical methods are taught to explain how to adjust batting averages in order to compare players in terms of their batting averages. The average baseball fan would be interested in comparisons of Ty Cobb, Tony Gwynn, Ted Williams and others who are acknowledged as the best hitters for average in the game. Schell considers factors that make direct comparisons unfair and he provides methods to adjust for these factors based on the vast amount of statistical data available to him that has been gathered throughout the history of major league baseball.
   Key effects include the home ball park, stage of career and interventions such as the lowering of the pitcher's mound after 1968. To adjust for players whose abilities decline substantially in the latter years of their career Schell uses only the first 8000 at bats to gauge the players hitting ability. This helps players like Mickey Mantle whose performance declined appreciably at the end of his career due in part to injuries.
   
   Schell provides a lot of interesting statistics and comparisons. Ty Cobb had the highest lifetime batting average but after all the adjustments finishes second to Tony Gwynn, a result that will surely create controversy.
   
   Nevertheless Schell's approach makes sense and his results are not too surprising. As he notes his adjustments move many of the modern players whose numerical averages are lower than the players from the late 1800s and early 1900s, ahead on the list.
   
   Schell relates how he showed up to meet and congratulate Gwynn on the date of his 8000th at bat when he clinched first place based on the Schell adjustment system.
   
   Mike Schell is a sports enthusiast and a professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina. In 2002 he was one of the invited speakers at the Sport Statistics Section Session of the Joint Statistical Meetings.
   
   This book was published just one month after his other book on home run hitters. The methodology is quite similar. This book got a lot more fan fare due to the publicity regarding Tony Gwynn.



5. Baseball fans love to engage in "who's the best" debates. When I was young, that was the primary topic of conversation between the boys in my neighborhood. Since we did not have a great deal of knowledge concerning the history of the game, our debates were primarily over the current teams and players. Occasionally, we did delve into the "of all time" areas, but our arguments were always weakened by issues such as the differences in the ballparks and how the game had changed over the years. We always considered these issues to be ones that we could not resolve, so little time was spent on them.
   In this book, statistical techniques are used to adjust for the differences in the era, different ballparks and how the rules have changed over the years. The conclusions are somewhat surprising and while they can be controversial, it is difficult to argue with the methods used to arrive at the conclusion. Schell's conclusion is that Tony Gwynn is the best hitter of all time. Tables abound, demonstrating statistics adjusted for the appropriate changes. Some of the most astounding statistics are those regarding the effect that a ballpark can have on a career. On page 190, there is a synopsis concerning Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox. It was a park that favored the pitchers until 1934, when there was a major renovation. Since 1934, one-third of the American League batting champions was a member of the Red Sox. Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies, is the best park for hitters, a conclusion easily supported by the data. For all three years covered in this book, the Rockies won the team batting title and the individual title was a race between Tony Gwynn, Mike Piazza and someone from the Rockies.
   As a lifelong baseball fan and a teacher of statistics, I loved this book. It is also not necessary to completely understand all of the statistical concepts to appreciate the conclusions. There is also a list of the best players based on each position other than pitcher, although all outfielders are grouped together. Schell lists "Actual and Recommended Hall of Fame ***" where *** is the given position, based on the statistical adjustments he has performed. Although there is some room for controversy regarding Schell's conclusions, he provides a fascinating look into how the game has changed over time and how it can change from ballpark to ballpark.

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5 comments about Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion.

1. I have prurchased this book to improve my english language.
   Yhe same talks about two subjects that I know: computers and chess.
   It was a good surprise read this enjoyable work which offers information, stories and knowledge.
   The author explains very clear the roots of Deep Blue and reflects the environment of Top chess.
   
   Read it!



2. Behind Deep Blue was written by the man who lead the research and development team which created the chess computer that beat the World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov. Hsu tells a lot of fascinating stories about his involvement with IBM, academia and the world of computer-vs-computer chess tournaments. It never got too bogged down in computer or chess jargon.
   
   Some interesting things concerning the identity of Deep Blue (or computers in general) emerge from Hsu's story. Hsu speaks of his computers' identities in ways which facilitate his sportsmanship. So for instance, almost every time one of Hsu's computers loses a game it is retrospectively explained by reminding the reader that the computer had been regrettably forced to play when it still needed a few more weeks of software or hardware tweaking. It never lost because it was an inferior machine - it lost because its superiority could not manifest because its update/debugging had been interrupted by the tournament schedule. As the book makes clear, Hsu's computers were continuously undergoing relentless tweaking, providing Hsu with this excuse every single time one lost. This may be par for the course when diagnosing machines - since any sub-desired performance which can be corrected can, therefore, be "explained" as the unfortunate consequence of the machine's present uncorrected state. For humans it's different. When I lose a foot-race I can't say, "Well the only reason I lost is because this race was scheduled a few years before my training made me fast enough to win it."
   
   Another fascinating element of the book is Hsu's recounting of Deep Blue's now-famous rejection of 36. Qb6 in game two against Kasparov in the 1997 match. Kasparov broadly hinted that the computer's decision not to move that way was a human decision - implying that the IBM team had cheated. Hsu's defense of Deep Blue is convincing. But there is raised an interesting point regarding computer intelligence. If Deep Blue did in fact choose to avoid 36. Qb6 without human intervention then Kasparov's heartfelt identification of the move as cheating has Deep Blue passing a simple version of a Turing Test.



3. Feng-Hsiung Hsu's story will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine or Steven Levy's Hackers. The book captures the thrills and spills of an intellectual steeplechase. Along the way, it reveals the inner workings of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University. It's a great read. Feng-Hsiung Hsu, if you're reading this and you ever find yourself in Hortonville, Wisconsin, the first cup of coffee is on me.



4. Conceit and self-righteousness have become the calling cards of anyone who can outdo someone or something with computers. Big deal. All the self adulation that has gone into this tacky piece of work can't hold a candle to the fact that Gary Kasparov can play chess (and think!) Which is more than I can say about the vanity displayed by the author. Anyone who sets out to humiliate or bring down a champion by using questionable means has zero integrity. However, it's to be expected from this kind of individual.
   It is singularly unimpressive; vain and self indulgent.



5. "Behind deep blue" is the great feat of the applied technology (computer chip design, programming chess) over the human mind. This is a statement that should invite us to think and rethink, specially if we recall HAL 900 in 2001 (A space Odyssey). On one hand, one may be tempted to argue the chess is just a variegated set of combinations and nothing else; but besides there's an unsolved question in the air; have we ruined the artistic beauty, the power of the mind and the sophisticated analysis behind every move?
   
   This millenary game has enjoyed millions and millions of people around the world, without lacking age, sex, social condition, ideological beliefs or geographic latitude. But beneath these reflections underlies the expected desire to find out what made possible the apparently impossible.
   
   Go for it.

No comments about An elementary treatise on determinants : with their application to simultaneous linear equations and algebraical geometry / By Charles L. Dodgson ....

3 comments about The Great Mental Calculators: The Psychology, Methods, and Lives of Calculating Prodigies Past and Present.

1. If you love maths and play with numbers it is a great book for you



2. The book is divided into three sections, covering the psychological aspects of rapid mental calculation, the mathematical methods involved, and brief summaries of the lives of the great calculators (which include particular methods used by each person). There are extensive quotations from the calculators themselves, explaining their methods and how they learned. The book is so well-written it's hard to put down, yet it covers the topic in great depth. Smith surveys all the prior literature on the subject, and has also interviewed many of the living calculators. His knowledge of both math and psychology is impressive. This is a MUST for anyone interested in the subject, or just interested in improving their calculating abilities.



3. The best book of mental calculation of the world.
   You will be impressed by Klein's method to extract the 13th
   root of a 100-digit number in 1mn28s, the very famous world
   record of mental calculation. But do not forget that Alexis
   LEMAIRE extracted it in 13s: 44800613, also divisible by 13,
   in the year 2002=154x13! This is another story...

No comments about The Bequest of the Greeks..

5 comments about Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty.

1. A delightful and important book for all math enthusiasts. A must read for budding mathematicians.
   
   This book authoritatively chronicles the gradual realization that mathematics is not the exploration of hard edged objective reality or the discovery of universal certainties, but is more akin to music or story telling or any of a number of very human activities.
   
   Kline is no sideline popularizer bent on de-throwning our intellectual heros - he speaks knowledgeably from within the discipline of mathematics, revealing the evolution of mathematical thought from "If this is real, why are there so many paradoxes and seeming inconsistencies?" to "If this is just something people do, why is it so damned powerful?"



2. English:
   This book isn't meant to be a mathematics book, still it offers a very good qualitative view of the problems it describes - at least as long as the reader has a not-zero competence in mathematics.
   Don't forget what Kant wrote, in the introduction of his masterpiece "Critique of Pure Reason" i.e. "that many a book would have been much clearer if it had not made such an effort to be clear": there are topics that can't be explained in "too simple words".
   There are a lot of divulging books that are not clear for competent reader and seem to be clear for inadequate readers: this is not the case of Kline books, which provides a interesting reading for an interested reader.
   Italiano
   Questo libro non intende essere un testo di matematica, ciò nonostante, offre un'ottima visione qualitativa dei temi che tratta - almeno se il lettore ha una competenza non nulla in matematica.
   Non si dimentichi quello che Kant scrisse nel suo capolavoro "la critica della ragion pura", ovvero "molti libri sarebbero stati molto più chiari se non avessero voluto essere così chiari": ci sono argomenti che non possono essere spiegati in "termini troppo semplici".
   Esistono molti testi divulgativi che non sono per nulli chiari per il lettore competente, e sembrano essere chiari per il lettore inadeguato: non è questo il caso del libro di Kline, che offre una lettura interessante per un lettore interessato.



3. One reviewer said, ``First, Barbosa attacks Morris Kline (he's got some nerve doing that) for Prof. Kline's supposed lack of understanding of mathematics. This frivolous insult is so ridiculous that it isn't necessary to discuss it further.'' I won't claim that Kline doesn't understand mathematics, but it is quite clear from this book that he does not understand logic. I looked up reviews in the professional literature by logicians and found they made the same point.
   
   Kline makes many technical errors in his account of the foundational debates in the early twentieth century. My favorite mistake, and perhaps his most blatant blooper, is Kline's statement that the Loewenheim-Skolem Theorem implies Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem; he thinks that models with different cardinalities cannot satisfy the same sentences. (For non-logicians: they can and do; Kline's alleged implication is wrong.) His account of the history of mathematics is not as bad.
   
   Kline was an applied mathematician, and in his last two chapters informs us in very strong terms that applied mathematics is good and true, but pure mathematics is not. He urges mathematicians to abandon the study of analysis, topology, functional analysis, etc., and devote themselves to the problems of science.
   
   The book is lively and entertaining, if not entirely reliable.



4. Kline demonstates ,in a clear and detailed fashion ,that the pursuit of " pure " mathematics(the set theoretical,real analysis approach),as opposed to the applied mathematics useful to scientific discovery ( the differential and integral calculus plus ordinary and partial differential equations),leads to a dead end as far as scientific discovery is concerned.This is well illustrated in his discussion of the rise of the Nicholas Bourbaki school that has come to dominate mathematics(pp.256-257)since the mid -1930's and its impact on the social sciences.
   The field of economics is an excellent example of Kline's point.Economists are notorious for trying to copy the latest technical developments that occur in mathematics,statistics,physics,biology,etc.,irrespective of whether or not such techniques will yield useful knowledge which economists can use to analyze the events/historical processes occurring in the real world so that they can explain and predict why and when these events/processes will occur/reoccur.The best examples of the non or anti-scientific approach of the economics profession are the (a) Arrow-Debreu-Hahn general equilibrium approach based on various fixed point theorems,(b)the Subjective Expected Utility approach of Ramsey-De Finetti-Savage ,and(c)the universal belief of econometricians in the applicability of multiple regression and correlation analysis based on a least squares approach which requires the assumption of normality.It is not surprising that no econometrician in the 20th century ever did a basic goodness of fit test on their time series data to check to see whether or not the assumption of normality was sound.It took a Benoit Mandelbrot to demonstrate that the assumption of normality did not stand up.
   The result has been that the economists simply are incapable of dealing with phenomena in the real world.Their pursuit of the latest fad or gimmick or technique to copy leads to the type of comment made by Robert Lucas,Jr.,the main founder of the rationalist expectationist school,that his theory can't deal with uncertainty,but only risk which must be represented by the standard deviation of a normal probability distribution.It is unfortunate that Lucas never did any goodness of fit test on business cycle time series data before constructing a theory that is only applicable if business cycles can be represented by multivariate normal probability distributions.
   Kline's approach to the nature of mathematical discovery is very similar to that of J M Keynes and R Carnap-"The recognition that intuition plays a fundamental role in securing mathematical truths and that proof plays only a supporting role suggests that ...mathematics has turned full circle.The subject started on an intuitive and empirical basis...the efforts to pursue rigor... have led to an impasse..."(p.319).It can easily be observed that all of the three economist approaches mentioned above have ended in an impasse also.



5. There is a lot of history of the development of current mathematics and a lot of information of interest to mathematicians. Many of the concepts in this book will probably not be understood by the lay person (that is someone without adequate knowledge of the calculus) insofar as Kline provides lots of mathematical examples not well (or not at all) explained in lay person terms. This book has a lot of hype about it but is not at all worth the hype.

2 comments about The Theory of the Riemann Zeta-Function (Oxford Science Publications).

1. Titchmarch is well known in the theory of functions, in this book, he described the Riemann's Zeta function in the most comprehensive way. ( e. g. in the topic of functional equation, he quoted 7 methods) I cannot find any other book more comprehensive than this one. ( though in order the theories, you must have some background knowledge and patience ! )



2. This is the true encyclopaedia of the zeta function. Although I prefer Ivic, I always have the feeling that Titchmarsh wants to appear brilliant.

   This book cannot be criticized because of the amount of time and effort that must have been spent on it. It was update in 1986 by Heath Brown.
   It is useless to summarize the contents because it mainly has everything, and most theorems have several proofs and very long comments.
   One thing that is missing is more stuff about prime number distributions (for this, check Ingham, Edward's, and a bit of Ivic's).

   It never becomes redundant, and it can either be used a source for additional information, as dictionary, or it can be used in a linear way.

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