This is a breezy survey of interesting topics in physics, astronomy, biology and others to which certain probabilistic techniques are applied. The selection of problems is interesting but the book does not supply methods of calculation or computation in sufficient detail to be able to recapitulate the topic by oneself. For example, the chapter on the Structure of Spiral Galaxies tells an anecdote of how the author and his colleagues modeled spiral galaxies but the details are left to papers in the refernce section that one may or may not have access. Even then, one is talking about weeks or months of work to be able to redo those papers.The author provides Matlab code snippets. But who is using Matlab that requires a software license $1200? I would have wish for Python, or C++, or some other non-properitory language.Good book for specialist who already know how to calculate, not so good for those who are trying to learn how to solve similar problems.Its worth skimming, selecting a few topics, and to try to learn how to do the calculations/computations yourself.

This is a breezy survey of interesting topics in physics, astronomy, biology and others to which certain probabilistic techniques are applied. The selection of problems is interesting but the book does not supply methods of calculation or computation in sufficient detail to be able to recapitulate the topic by oneself. For example, the chapter on the Structure of Spiral Galaxies tells an anecdote of how the author and his colleagues modeled spiral galaxies but the details are left to papers in the refernce section that one may or may not have access. Even then, one is talking about weeks or months of work to be able to redo those papers.The author provides Matlab code snippets. But who is using Matlab that requires a software license $1200? I would have wish for Python, or C++, or some other non-properitory language.Good book for specialist who already know how to calculate, not so good for those who are trying to learn how to solve similar problems.Its worth skimming, selecting a few topics, and to try to learn how to do the calculations/computations yourself.

This is a breezy survey of interesting topics in physics, astronomy, biology and others to which certain probabilistic techniques are applied. The selection of problems is interesting but the book does not supply methods of calculation or computation in sufficient detail to be able to recapitulate the topic by oneself. For example, the chapter on the Structure of Spiral Galaxies tells an anecdote of how the author and his colleagues modeled spiral galaxies but the details are left to papers in the refernce section that one may or may not have access. Even then, one is talking about weeks or months of work to be able to redo those papers.The author provides Matlab code snippets. But who is using Matlab that requires a software license $1200? I would have wish for Python, or C++, or some other non-properitory language.Good book for specialist who already know how to calculate, not so good for those who are trying to learn how to solve similar problems.Its worth skimming, selecting a few topics, and to try to learn how to do the calculations/computations yourself.