For centuries, people around the world have prayed for good luck and warded against bad. Every language features a good luck greeting. Sailors have long looked for an albatross on the horizon as a symbol of good fortune. Jade, clovers, rabbits' feet, wishbones: these items have lined the pockets of those seeking good fortune. For some, it's bad luck to walk under a ladder, to enter and leave a home through different doors or to say "Macbeth" in a theatre. But is there such a thing as luck, or does luck often just explain common sense? Is luck real or the mere stuff of superstition? Join us for a closer look at Jeffrey S. Rosenthal's latest book, Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything.

Jeffrey S. Rosenthal is an award-winning Canadian statistician and author, and a professor of statistics at the University of Toronto. Visit him at Probability.ca and on Twitter @ProbabilityProf.

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