A series of essays introducing the applications of machine learning and statistics in natural language processing, speech recognition and web search for non-technical readers "This volume originates from a series of blog articles by the author, who works as senior staff research scientist for Google China. The blog articles have been rewritten to make them more accessible to uninitiated readers. As a result, the book contains 29 chapters which may be read independently. The aim is to provide evidence for the beauty of mathematics and the wealth of its applications to the layman . . . The volume may be quite valuable for readers who want to get some insight into how enterprises like Google achieve their performance, and how much mathematics is at work in the background of many commonplace services . . . " ~Dieter Riebesehl (Lüneburg), zbMath