WHAT IS RANDOM ? Chance and Order in Mathematics and Life

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 surprising 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 Beltrami shows how order and randomness are really two sides of the same mysterious coin.