Stout & Vetiver reviewed Digital Dice by Paul Nahin
Review of 'Digital Dice' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
A nice short book on the use of Monte Carlo simulations (or random number generation) to solve some fun problems. The problems are all written in a recreational or puzzle-like style but a number of them are toy versions of topics of real interest.
The book is in 3 parts: an introduction where the Monte Carlo concept is explained and the classic determination of pi is discussed; the problem descriptions (21 in total); and Nahin's solutions. The solutions involve analytical "setting up" of the problem which requires a greater comfort with mathematical concepts and notation than most puzzle books. Nahin also provides listings of the code, in Matlab, that he used to solve the problems. Matlab is easy to read and can be run as is (in most cases) with the free open source Octave . The code is deliberately straight-forward and Nahin acknowledges that if you are competent programmer …
A nice short book on the use of Monte Carlo simulations (or random number generation) to solve some fun problems. The problems are all written in a recreational or puzzle-like style but a number of them are toy versions of topics of real interest.
The book is in 3 parts: an introduction where the Monte Carlo concept is explained and the classic determination of pi is discussed; the problem descriptions (21 in total); and Nahin's solutions. The solutions involve analytical "setting up" of the problem which requires a greater comfort with mathematical concepts and notation than most puzzle books. Nahin also provides listings of the code, in Matlab, that he used to solve the problems. Matlab is easy to read and can be run as is (in most cases) with the free open source Octave . The code is deliberately straight-forward and Nahin acknowledges that if you are competent programmer you can no doubt can improve on his work. However, teaching coding wasn't his intent.
An enjoyable book with some nice surprises.