God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (i.e. everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
- Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchet: Good Omens, Ace Books, New York, 1996, p.4

Like many sceptics, I assume, I'm always interested in learning about science apart from my own specialist topics. For me, the most interesting of these is Physics. That's the reason I was delighted to find that my local library had recently acquired the German version of Leonard Mlodinow's book The Drunkard's Walk. It's German edition is called Wenn Gott würfelt (When God plays dice), and it is my new prime argument in case any of my friends want to know why I read books in English.

No, it's not (primarily) because I'm pretentious, it's not because I need to keep my English knowledge fresh (that's what the internet is for, after all), the reason is that many German publishers sometimes suck pretty hard when it comes to science.

Wenn Gott würfelt was released by Rowohlt, one of the biggest German publishers, and translated by Monika Niehaus. Apparently (from what Google tells me), she's got a doctorate in Biology and is a Sci-Fi-author and journalist. And, from reading her translation, she either has no clue of probability and infinitesimal calculus, or her lector, Frank Strickstrock is half-blind (or both).

This is apparent in some passages:

For example, German has no real equivalent to the English "1 in 2" (the odds of correctly guessing the outcome of a coin-throw), instead we say "1 zu 1" or "1 to 1" (1:1), meaning a 50% chance. Unfortunately, this seems to be all Greek to Mrs. Niehaus, who puts the odds of guessing the outcome of a dice-roll at "1:6", (which means: "1 in 7"), a rather fucked translation of the original (pp. 88f.)

In the same vein, the initial odds of the Monty Hall Problem are given as 1:3 (which would make sense for 4 doors, but for the described setting of 3 doors, they are 1 in 3, or 1:2) (pp. 79 - 81).

Of course, this being a book about randomness and probability, this problem rears its ugly head again and again.

Even worse are the minute proof-reading failures: Mlodinow shows us, how calculus approaches the limit of 1 by adding incrementally smaller fractions:

1st interval: 1/2
2nd interval: 1/2 + 1/4 = 3/4
3rd interval: 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 = 7/8
4th interval: 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 = 15/16

Only in the German edition, the third term is given as "1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 = 1/8". Yes, one eighth as the result. This error should be apparent to all but the most cursory proof-reading (p. 127). Weak, Mr. Strickstrock, very weak.

Apart from all that: Mlodinow is a good writer, and a good science writer at that. He takes the quite common approach of laying out the science of randomness and probability via an overview of its history, but garnished by personal and other miscellaneous anecdotes and trivia. The result is a generally clear (if, thanks to Mrs. Niehaus, sometimes obfuscated) view at the many fallacies people submit to when dealing with randomness, and ways to spot this said randomness in everyday life around us.

Get the book, read it, learn from it - but, please, please - bitte! - do get it in the original English.

Leonard Mlodinow: The Drunkard's Walk. How Randomness Rules our Lives, Pantheon Books, New York, 2008.

Leonard Mlodinow: Wenn Gott Würfelt oder Wie der Zufall unser Leben bestimmt. Deutsch von Monika Niehaus, Rohwolt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2009.