Numb and Number: How to Avoid Being Mystified by the Mathematics of Modern Life

by William Hartston

Overview

'A wise, witty and insightful guide to clear thinking amid a deluge of percentages and probabilities.' Ian Stewart
Like it or not, our lives are dominated by mathematics. Our daily diet of news regales us with statistical forecasts, opinion polls, risk assessments, inflation figures, weather and climate predictions and all sorts of political decisions and advice backed up by supposedly accurate numbers. Most of us do not even pause and question such figures even to ask what they really mean and whether they raise more questions than they answer.
In this simple guide for anyone numbed by numbers, William Hartston reveals with clarity and humour why the figures being flung at us may not tell the whole story. Along the way he explains commonly misused mathematical terms, solves everyday mathematical problems and shows how to steer a safe path through the minefield of mathematics that surrounds us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781838950866
Publisher:	Atlantic Books
Publication date:	11/05/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

William Hartston is a Cambridge-educated mathematician and industrial psychologist. Between 1962 and 1987 he played chess competitively, becoming an international master and winning the British chess championship in 1973 and 1975. He runs competitions in creative thinking at the annual Mind Sports Olympiad, writes the off-beat Beachcomber column for the Daily Express, where he is also the opera critic, and is the author of several books on chess, numbers, humour and trivia, including The Things That Nobody Knows and Even More Things That Nobody Knows. He is also one of the viewers on Channel 4's Gogglebox.

Editorial Reviews

"A wise, witty and insightful guide to clear thinking amid a deluge of percentages and probabilities. Learn to spot the fake formulas and the spurious statistics. Up to 100% of readers will find this book utterly fascinating. Recommended by 92.53% of mathematicians." —Ian Stewart, A British mathematician and a popular-science and science-fiction writer.

From the Publisher