L.A. math
Subtitle: romance, crime, and mathematics in the City of Angels
By: James D. Stein
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9780691168289
Subjects: Miscellanea; Fiction; Criminal investigation; Mathematics
Other titles: Los Angeles math
Description: "Move over, Sherlock and Watson--the detective duo of Carmichael and Lennox shows how math smarts can crack even the most perplexing cases. In the entertaining short-story collection L.A. Math, freelance investigator Freddy Carmichael meets colorful personalities throughout Los Angeles and encounters mysterious circumstances from embezzlement and robbery to murder. In each story, Freddy's deductive instincts--and the trusty math skills of his sidekick, Pete Lennox--solve the crime. Featuring such glamorous locales as Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Malibu, and Santa Barbara, the fourteen short stories in L.A. Math take Freddy and Pete through various puzzles and challenges. In "A Change of Scene," Freddy has to figure out who is selling corporate secrets to a competitor--so he uses mathematical logic to uncover the culprit. In "The Winning Streak," conditional probability turns the tables on an unscrupulous bookie. And in "Message from a Corpse," the murderer of a wealthy widow is revealed through the rules of compound interest. It's everything you expect from the City of Angels--A-listers and wannabes, lovers and lawyers, heroes and villains. Readers will not only be entertained, but also gain practical mathematics knowledge, ranging from percentages and probability to set theory, statistics, and the mathematics of elections. For those who want to delve into mathematical subjects further, the book includes a supplementary section with more material. Filled with intriguing stories, L.A. Math is a treat for lovers of romance, crime, or mathematics"--
Notes: Includes index.

Includes index.
Table of contents: title: A change of scene --; title: The case of the vanishing greenbacks --; title: A matter of time --; title: The worst forty days since the Flood --; title: The accidental guest --; title: Message from a corpse --; title: Animal passions --; title: Nothing to crow about --; title: The winning streak --; title: One long season --; title: The great basketball fix --; title: It's all in the game --; title: Division of labor --; title: The quarterback controversy -- -- Appendixes : continuing the investigations: 1. Mathematical logic in "A change of scene" ; 2. Percentages in "The case of the vanishing greenbacks" ; 3. Averages and rates in "A matter of time" ; 4. Sequences and arithmetic progressions in "The worst forty days since the Flood" ; 5. Algebra, the language of quantitative relationships, in "The accidental guest" ; 6. Mathematics of finance in "Message from a corpse" ; 7. Set theory in "Animal passions" ; 8. The Chinese Restaurant Principle : combinatorics in "Nothing to crow about" ; 9. Probability and expectation in "The winning streak" ; 10. Conditional probability in "One long season" ; 11. Statistics in "The great basketball fix" ; 12. Game theory in "It's all in the game" ; 13. Elections in "Division of labor" ; 14. Algorithms, efficiency, and complexity in "The quarterback controversy"; title: An introduction to sports betting.