This article was originally published on October 29th 2009. Randomness, especially in our daily lives, is still enthralling to me - I'm working on a new book entitled Manufacturing Luck. Reading a book on the history and development of probability theory might not seem too enthralling.  But somehow Leonard Mlodinow’s The Drunkard’s Walk combines both the technical developments and the characters along the way into a coherent (and enjoyable) whole.  Along the way, it points out why the ancient Greeks never studied probability and why most of the great thinking on the subject came about because of gambling. There’s a method to his … [Read more...]