Today I talked to
Leonard Wapner about his new book
Unexpected Expectations: The Curiosities of a Mathematical Crystal Ball (A.K. Peters, 2012). Prof. Wapner's previous book,
The Pea and the Sun, was an in-depth investigation of the Banach-Tarski Theorem, one of the most counterintuitive results in mathematics. Expectation is an extension of the idea of average value, and is a basic tool of probability theory that underlies both the gaming and insurance industries.
Unexpected Expectations is a fascinating look at some of the counterintuitive aspects of this apparently simple concept.