What Is Random?: chance and order in mathematics and life Book

People familiar with quantum indeterminacy tell us that order is an illusion and that the world is fundamentally random: Yet these same people also say that randomness is an illusion: The appearance of randomness is only a sign of our ignorance and inability to detect the pattern. We can define a random outcome as one without perceivable cause or design, inherently unpredictable. We sometimes choose between options "at random" and if we toss a coin, we know it will land heads or tails "at random." When an event takes place as the confluence of totally unrelated events, it may appear to be so suprising and bizarre-for instance, when a man hurrying down a street in response to a sudden phone call at the same time that a roof worker accidentally drops a hammer that hits the unfortunate pedestrian's head-that we say the outcome is due to "blind chance." But are events such as these truly random? In this thought-provoking book, mathematician Edward Beltami shows how order and randomness are really two sides of the same mysterious coin.