Edward O. Thorp

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Edward Oakley Thorp (born August 14, 1932 in Chicago ) is an American mathematician, author and hedge fund manager.

Life

Thorp studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) until 1958 and graduated with the dissertation “Compact Linear Operators in Normed Spaces”. From 1959 to 1961 he was Moore Instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and rose from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor at New Mexico State University from 1961 to 1965 . In 1962 he published "Beat the dealer", in which he describes card counting as a successful strategy for blackjack . For the first time a mathematical concept was developed here that actually gave the player an advantage over the casino . In 1966 he published a second edition of "Beat the Dealer", which increased the great popularity of the original. The reason for this was a more applicable and practical technique.

Thorp also developed a counting method to be able to calculate the expectation of a player in backgammon more precisely.

From 1965 he was associate professor and from 1967 to 1977 he was professor of mathematics and from 1977 to 1982 of mathematics and finance at the University of California at Irvine .

Later he tried to apply his knowledge to the financial markets .

Currently (2005) he heads a successful hedge fund as President of Edward O. Thorp & Associates in Newport Beach . Edward Thorp is married to Vivian Thorp.

Works (selection)

  • Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One. A scientific Analysis of the world-wide Game known variously as Blackjack, Twenty-One, Vingt-et-Un, Pontoon or Van John. Blaisdell, New York NY 1962.
  • Elementary Probability. Wiley, New York NY 1966 (Reprinted edition. RE Krieger, Huntington NY 1977, ISBN 0-88275-389-4 ).
  • with Sheen T. Kassouf: Beat the Market. A Scientific Stock Market System. Random House, New York NY 1967, ISBN 0-394-42439-5 .
  • The Mathematics of Gambling. Gambling Times et al., Hollywood CA et al. 1984, ISBN 0-897-46019-7 (as PDF: Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 ).
personal data
SURNAME Thorp, Edward O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thorp, Edward Oakley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago