William Poundstone

"The engine driving the Kelly system is the "law of large numbers." In a 1713 treatise on probability, Swiss mathematician Jakob Bernoulli propounded a law that has been misunderstood by gamblers ever …"

"Paradox is thus a much deeper and universal concept than the ancients would have dreamed. Rather than an oddity, it is a mainstay of the philosophy of science."

"For reasons mathematical, psychological, and sociological, it is a good idea to use a money management system that is relatively forgiving of estimation errors."

"To hedge the bets he made every working day, Meriwether kept a set of rosary beads in his briefcase."

"Use "entropy" and you can never lose a debate, von Neumann told Shannon - because no one really knows what "entropy" is."

"Carl Friedrich Gauss, often rated the greatest mathematician of all time, played the market. On a salary of 1,000 thalers a year, Euler left an estate of 170,587 thalers in cash and securities. Nothin…"

"Far from preventing gambler's ruin, martingale accelerates it."

"Your second ducat, like your second million, is never quite as sweet."