Best Selling Books by William Poundstone

In 1961, MIT mathematics professor Ed Thorp made a small Vegas fortune by "counting cards"; his 1962 bestseller, "Beat the Dealer," made the phrase a household word. With Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, Thorp next conquered the roulette tables. In this prosaic but fascinating cultural history, the author of "How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?" tells not only what they did but how they did it.

A masterful work of science writing that’s "both a fascinating biography of von Neumann, the Hungarian exile whose mathematical theories were building blocks for the A-bomb and the digital computer, and a brilliant social history of game theory and its role in the Cold War and nuclear arms race" (San Francisco Chronicle). Should you watch public television without pledging?...Exceed the posted speed limit?...Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the so-called "prisoner''s dilemma", a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner''s dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science. Watching players bluff in a poker game inspired John von Neumann—father of the modern computer and one of the sharpest minds of the century—to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery. Called the "prisoner''s dilemma," it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. Introduced shortly after the Soviet Union acquired the atomic bomb, the prisoner''s dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann and Bertrand Russell joined military and political leaders in rallying to the "preventive war" movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the United States entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy—alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them. Prisoner''s Dilemma is the incisive story of a revolutionary idea that has been hailed as a landmark of twentieth-century thought.

The inside story on institutional secrets, including the formula for Coca-Cola, how to beat a lie detector, currency conspiracies, and other hidden facts. Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out. What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here''s the whole story, including—yes!—the electric carpet. Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken''s eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody''s shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis. Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney''s body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth. Don''t bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. Big Secrets has complete explanations and diagrams—nothing left to the imagination.

A practical guide to outguessing everything, from multiple-choice tests to the office football pool to the stock market. People are predictable even when they try not to be. William Poundstone demonstrates how to turn this fact to personal advantage in scores of everyday situations, from playing the lottery to buying a home. Rock Breaks Scissors is mind-reading for real life. Will the next tennis serve go right or left? Will the market go up or down? Most people are poor at that kind of predicting. We are hard-wired to make bum bets on "trends" and "winning streaks" that are illusions. Yet ultimately we''re all in the business of anticipating the actions of others. Poundstone reveals how to overcome the errors and improve the accuracy of your own outguessing. Rock Breaks Scissors is a hands-on guide to turning life''s odds in your favor.

The No.1 bestseller new in paperback! You are shrunk to the height of a penny and thrown in a blender. The blades start moving in sixty seconds. What do you do? If you want to work at Google, or any of the world’s top employers, you’ll need to have a convincing answer to this and countless other baffling puzzles. Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google? Reveals the new extreme interview questions in the postcrash, hypercompetitive job-market and uncovers the extraordinary lengths to which the best companies will go to find the right staff. Bestselling author William Poundstone guides readers through the surprising solutions to over a hundred of the most challenging conundrums used in interviews, as well as covering the importance of creative thinking, what your Facebook page says about you, and what really goes on inside the Googleplex. How will you fare?

Prada stores carry a few obscenely expensive items in order to boost sales for everything else (which look like bargains in comparison). People used to download music for free, then Steve Jobs convinced them to pay. How? By charging 99 cents. That price has a hypnotic effect: the profit margin of the 99 Cents Only store is twice that of Wal-Mart. Why do text messages cost money, while e-mails are free? Why do jars of peanut butter keep getting smaller in order to keep the price the "same"? The answer is simple: prices are a collective hallucination. In Priceless, the bestselling author William Poundstone reveals the hidden psychology of value. In psychological experiments, people are unable to estimate "fair" prices accurately and are strongly influenced by the unconscious, irrational, and politically incorrect. It hasn''t taken long for marketers to apply these findings. "Price consultants" advise retailers on how to convince consumers to pay more for less, and negotiation coaches offer similar advice for businesspeople cutting deals. The new psychology of price dictates the design of price tags, menus, rebates, "sale" ads, cell phone plans, supermarket aisles, real estate offers, wage packages, tort demands, and corporate buyouts. Prices are the most pervasive hidden persuaders of all. Rooted in the emerging field of behavioral decision theory, Priceless should prove indispensable to anyone who negotiates.

This sharply intelligent, consistently provocative book takes the reader on an astonishing, thought-provoking voyage into the realm of delightful uncertainty--a world of paradox in which logical argument leads to contradiction and common sense is seemingly rendered irrelevant.

At least five U.S. presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate, because of "spoilers"--Minor candidates who take enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election. The spoiler effect is a consequence of the "impossibility theorem," discovered by Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow, which asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair--and political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. This book presents a solution to the spoiler problem: a system called range voting, already widely used on the Internet, which is the fairest voting method of all, according to computer studies. Range voting remains controversial, however, and author Poundstone assesses the obstacles confronting any attempt to change the American electoral system.--From publisher description.

From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, employers are using tough and tricky questions to gauge job candidates'' intelligence, imagination, and problem-solving ability -- qualities needed to survive in today''s hypercompetitive global marketplace. For the first time, William Poundstone reveals the toughest questions used at Microsoft and other Fortune 500 companies -- and supplies the answers. He traces the rise and controversial fall of employer-mandated IQ tests, the peculiar obsessions of Bill Gates (who plays jigsaw puzzles as a competitive sport), the sadistic mind games of Wall Street (which reportedly led one job seeker to smash a forty-third-story window), and the bizarre excesses of today''s hiring managers (who may start off your interview with a box of Legos or a game of virtual Russian roulette). How Would You Move Mount Fuji? is an indispensable book for anyone in business. Managers seeking the most talented employees will learn to incorporate puzzle interviews in their search for the top candidates. Job seekers will discover how to tackle even the most brain-busting questions, and gain the advantage that could win the job of a lifetime. And anyone who has ever dreamed of going up against the best minds in business may discover that these puzzles are simply a lot of fun. Why are beer cans tapered on the end, anyway?

The real-world value of knowledge in the mobile-device age. More people know who Khloe Kardashian is than who Rene Descartes was. Most can''t find Delaware on a map, correctly spell the word occurrence, or name the largest ocean on the planet. But how important is it to fill our heads with facts? A few keystrokes can summon almost any information in seconds. Why should we bother learning facts at all? Bestselling author William Poundstone confronts that timely question in Head in the Cloud. He shows that many areas of knowledge correlate with the quality of our lives -- wealth, health, and happiness -- and even with politics and behavior. Combining Big Data survey techniques with eye-opening anecdotes, Poundstone examines what Americans know (and don''t know) on topics ranging from quantum physics to pop culture. Head in the Cloud asks why we''re okay with spelling errors on menus but not on resumes; why Fox News viewers don''t know which party controls Congress; why people who know "trivia" make more money than those who don''t; how individuals can navigate clickbait and media spin to stay informed about what really matters. Hilarious, humbling, and wildly entertaining, Head in the Cloud is a must-read for anyone who doesn''t know everything.

From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes'' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here''s where things get really interesting: Bayes'' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley''s profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it''s the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.

The first biography of the best-known scientist of his generation and the author of the best-seller Cosmos. In this, the first full-scale examination of the life of Carl Sagan, award-winning science writer William Poundstone details the transformation of a bookish young astronomer obsessed with life on other worlds into science''s first authentic media superstar. As a fixture on television and a bestselling author, Sagan became instantly recognizable. To people around the world, he offered entrée into the mysteries of the cosmos and of science in general. To much of the scientific community, though, he was something of a pariah, a brazen publicity seeker who cared more about his image and his fortune than the advancement of science. Poundstone reveals the seldom-discussed aspects of Sagan''s life, the legitimate and important work of his early scientific career, the almost obsessive capacity to take on less projects, the multiple marriages and fractured tumultuous personal life-all essential elements of this complicated and extraordinary man, truly the first and most famous scientist of the media age.

Learn how to succeed at interview mind games and win job offers at A‑list companies, with more than eighty difficult and devious questions, puzzles, and brain teasers Each year about 28 million Americans begin a search for a new job. Many more live in the age of the permanent job search, their online profiles eternally awaiting a better offer. Job seekers are more mobile and better informed than ever, aspiring to work for employers offering an appealing culture, a robust menu of perks, and opportunities for personal fulfillment and advancement. The result is that millions of applications stream to the handful of companies that regularly top listings of the best companies to work for: Apple, Netflix, Amazon, Alphabet, Disney, SpaceX, Oracle, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, and others. Tesla has received as many as 200 applications for each open position. How do selective employers choose which people to hire? It’s through interviews asking uniquely demanding questions testing imagination, persistence, and creativity, like: Can an astronaut throw a baseball so it hits Earth? If you had $2,000, how would you double it in 24 hours? How is a milk carton like a plane seat? Chicken McNuggets come in boxes of 6, 9, and 20. What’s the largest number of McNuggets that McDonald’s can’t sell you? How many dogs in the world have the exact same number of hairs? How Do You Fight a Horse-Sized Duck? explores the new world of interviewing at A-list employers. It reveals more than eighty notoriously challenging interview questions and supplies both answers and a general strategy for creative problem-solving.

The Ultimate is sophisticated fun, literate trivia in the witty, anecdotal and provocative style fmailiar to Poundstone fans across the country. Here Poundstone establishes objective ways of determining what really is the biggest, the highest, the greatest, and the best.

This fascinating popular science journey explores key concepts in information theory in terms of Conway''s "Game of Life" program. The author explains the application of natural law to a random system and demonstrates the necessity of limits. Other topics include the limits of knowledge, paradox of complexity, Maxwell''s demon, Big Bang theory, and much more. 1985 edition.

From paper-scissors-stone to the stock market, the economics and psychology that will help you play to win..