No book comes into existence just because it has an author. The author matters, of course, but lots of other people are involved, too. Over my thirty years of teaching probability theory to college engineering classes, I have had hundreds of students, all of whom have served (some even willingly!) as test subjects for problems. This is my third probability puzzle book for Princeton University Press—Duelling Idiots and Digital Dice were the first two—and the problems in all three were vetted by my students. I thank each and every one of them.
Once I deliver a raw typescript to PUP it becomes the object of intense scrutiny by many, from my editor Vickie Kearn, to her PUP colleagues Debbie Tegarden, Quinn Fusting, Dimitri Karetnikov, and Carmina Alvarez-Gaffin, to others whom I don’t directly work with but I know are there. In addition, the book is transformed from delivered to finished form, one ready for the printer, by the efforts of the very important copy editor, who, for this book, was Marjorie Pannell, in Chicago. (This is the fourth book of mine that Marjorie has worked on.) All of these hard-working and talented folks have my sincere thanks.
Finally, my wife of fifty years, Patricia Ann, has played a very big role in all of my books, simply by understanding why I disappear for long periods of time, either to my office or to the university library, to write. And when I eventually reappear (certainly by dinnertime), there is always a hot meal and a kiss waiting for me—and sometimes the trash to take out, as well. What more could a seventy-two-year-old guy with bad eyesight whose hair (what’s left of it) is turning white possibly want out of life?
Paul Nahin Lee, New Hampshire February 2013 |