Probabilità, Rota and Kung

In everyday parlance, probability is an intuitive way of describing the uncertainty that surrounds the various possible outcomes of an event... whether the toss of a coin or the whims of the stock market. The construction of a theory of probability was a highly complex undertaking, requiring a close struggle between mathematics and philosophy in order to free concepts and rules from ignorance and misunderstandings. Probability was written in 1980, to outline the theory and introduce readers to the methods and problems of this discipline in a systematic way Thanks to the skilled expertise of two great mathematicians from the second half of the 20th century, these pages immediately established themselves as a small classic, for their rigour combined with the clarity with which such a demanding topic is addressed. Marco Li Calzi’s introductory essay contributes to making Probability a still indispensable book today.