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williamsangm's review
too many examples, not focused, boring, ableist, eugenicist.
kavinay's review
5.0
Good grief, an alternate title could very well be "2020: all the ways the world will quantitatively fall apart."
akaufman1089's review
4.0
As a math person of sorts, I'm of two minds about this book (just enough to be dangerous? a great catalyst to spark interest?)- but it was an interesting read! I loved the snail story - until the last 2 sentences.
bookanonjeff's review against another edition
5.0
No Formulas. Just Numb3rs. In this book about how math shapes our lives, British math professor Yates doesn't take us into the algebra, geometry, and even trigonometry that we all use daily - whether we realize it or not. Instead, he takes an approach similar to the now decade old US television show Numb3rs, starring David Krumholtz and Rob Morrow, wherein he shows applications of higher level mathematics in fields such as epidemiology, medicine, law, journalism, elections, and several others. Yates cites real world examples including unjust convictions and Ebola outbreaks and many others to show how math was used incorrectly and what the math actually showed in that situation, to help the reader begin to get an overall sense of math without getting bogged down in the technical calculations. Truly an excellent book for even the more arithmophobic among us, as it shows the numbers all around us and explains how we can have a better sense of them.
Disclaimers: 1) I LOVED Numb3rs back in the day and would still be watching it if it were still on the air. 2) I have a computer science degree and very nearly got secondary mathematics education and mathematics bachelors degrees at the same time as my CS one - so obviously I'm a bit more attuned to math than others.
Disclaimers: 1) I LOVED Numb3rs back in the day and would still be watching it if it were still on the air. 2) I have a computer science degree and very nearly got secondary mathematics education and mathematics bachelors degrees at the same time as my CS one - so obviously I'm a bit more attuned to math than others.
vladco's review
3.0
A timely read in this time of COVID-19 and fake news. Well researched, well written. A touch predictable if you’re familiar with modern research into behavioral economics and basic human irrationality.