Introduction to Geometric Probability (Lezioni Lincee)

Rating:
Summary: a beautiful book
Review: Everyone with any interest in probability or combinatorics should take a look at this book, and at least read Chapter 1, on the Buffon needle problem. It gives a beautiful conceptual solution, quite different from the more well-known solution using integrals to get conditional probabilities. I find it hard to imagine anyone reading Chapter 1 and not deciding to read the entire book.

I heard Rota lecture on this material, and the book has much the same feeling as his lectures: it is clear, elegant, and concise, full of illuminating examples. Relatively little background is required, and it should be easily accessible to beginning graduate students (or undergraduates with unusually strong backgrounds).