Ruma Falk

Ruma Falk
רומה פלק
Born
Oren-Aharonovich

1932
Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine
DiedAugust 15, 2020(2020-08-15) (aged 87–88)
Alma materHebrew University of Jerusalem
Known forProbability theory, human understanding of probability and statistics
AwardsGeorge Pólya Award (1984)
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology, Philosophy of Mathematics
InstitutionsHebrew University of Jerusalem
Doctoral advisorAmos Tversky

Ruma Falk (Hebrew: רומה פלק, née Oren-Aharonovich,[1] 1932–2020) was an Israeli psychologist and philosopher of mathematics known for her work on probability theory and human understanding of probability and statistics.[2]

Falk was born in Jerusalem,[1][2] and educated at the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium[2] and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[1] She completed her PhD on the perception of chance at the Hebrew University in 1975 under the supervision of Amos Tversky,[2] and became a professor there.[1][3][2] She was married to Raphael Falk, a geneticist and historian of science.[3][2][4]

Falk won the George Pólya Award of the Mathematical Association of America with Maya Bar-Hillel in 1984 for their joint work on probability.[5] She died on August 15, 2020.[4]

Selected works

Falk was the author of books including:

  • Understanding Probability and Statistics: A Book of Problems (A K Peters, 1993)[6]
  • אתגרים לתאים האפורים (Challenges to the Gray Cells, Poalim Library Publishing, 2004)[7]
  • יש בעיה! (There is a Problem, Poalim Library Publishing, 2013)[2]
  • Many Faces of the Gambler's Fallacy: Subjective Randomness and Its Diverse Manifestations (self-published, 2016)

She also created a board game, ברירה וסיכוי (Choice and Chance).[2]

Her other publications include:

  • Bar-Hillel, Maya; Falk, Ruma (March 1982), "Some teasers concerning conditional probabilities", Cognition, 11 (2): 109–122, doi:10.1016/0010-0277(82)90021-x, PMID 7198956, S2CID 44509163
  • Falk, Ruma; Bar-Hillel, Maya (June 1983), "Probabilistic dependence between events", The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, 14 (3): 240–247, doi:10.2307/3027094, JSTOR 3027094
  • Falk, Ruma; Greenbaum, Charles W. (February 1995), "Significance tests die hard", Theory & Psychology, 5 (1): 75–98, doi:10.1177/0959354395051004, S2CID 143583538
  • Falk, Ruma; Konold, Clifford (1997), "Making sense of randomness: Implicit encoding as a basis for judgment.", Psychological Review, 104 (2): 301–318, doi:10.1037/0033-295x.104.2.301

References

  1. ^ a b c d Falk, Ruma; Nickerson, R. (28 November 2016), "About the author", Many Faces of the Gambler's Fallacy, ISBN 978-1-5406-5770-1, retrieved 2021-05-23 – via Google Books
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Aderet, Ofer (10 September 2020), "2020-1932 החוקרת שבדקה מה הסיכוי" [The researcher who examined the chances of a coincidence: Prof. Roma Falk, who died last month, has used statistics and psychology to examine why only fools seek hidden meeting in a casual meeting on the street], Haaretz (in Hebrew)
  3. ^ a b Ruma Falk (1932–2000), French National Library, retrieved 2021-05-23
  4. ^ a b Sarkar, Sahotra (2021). "In Memoriam: Raphael Falk, 1929–2019". Biological Theory. 16 (1): 1–4. doi:10.1007/s13752-020-00368-1.
  5. ^ "Probabilistic Dependence between Events", Writing Awards, Mathematical Association of America, retrieved 2021-05-23
  6. ^ Reviews of Understanding Probability and Statistics:
  7. ^ Rokach, Aryeh (25 April 2005), "המקרה המוזר של הסוציולוג בשעת המסיבה" [The strange case of the sociologist at the party: Challenges to the Gray Cells], Books, Haaretz (in Hebrew)