Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World

By: Matt Parker

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Synopsis: An international bestsellerThe book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, &“When am I ever going to use this in the real world?&” &“Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.&” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn&’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences. Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 336 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780593084700
Related ISBNs:: 9780593084687
Publisher:: Penguin Publishing Group
Date of Addition:: 01/12/21
Copyrighted By:: Matt Parker
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: History, Nonfiction, Humor, Mathematics and Statistics, Philosophy
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.