Parts of this may become a part of my start of year, midyear, and end of year teaching.

This book came highly recommended but the title was kind of an epistemological speed-bump. It took me a while to start reading and then took me about a month to finish (unusually long time for me.) Overall I think it was very good and most people would benefit from and enjoy reading it. I'm usually pretty insistent that the deficiency in most modern academic fields is a lack of philosophy. I'm sure Ellenberg would agree, but he also highlights a deficiency in mathematical thinking. Scientists get sloppy/lazy with it, journalists and pollsters warp and misuse data, and the average student is perfectly happy to answer a word problem with a non-nonsensical result.

One of my favorite distinctions/reminders came early as he distinguished between calculations and math. What most people consider to be "doing math" is actually just punching numbers into a formula (with or without a calculator), mathematical thinking is understanding the formula, knowing when to use it, what the results mean, and just as importantly, what the numbers don't mean.

There are some spots where he dives into the weeds a bit more than is interesting to me, but the writing was solid throughout. It is one that I will probably never give a full re-read to, but I made a lot of highlights and notes that I expect to return to in the future.

This book was difficult. The difficulty was no doubt compounded by my listening to the audiobook (read by the author) as opposed to seeing the words (and figures) on a page. Losing the visual side of reading made some of the math even more difficult to understand that it would have been on it own. It was also difficult for me to get into the long descriptions and analysis of lotteries, which I don’t care about, and elections, which I do care about but find frustrating. But I still loved the way that it was written—colloquial, full of the history of mathematics, and focused on the big picture issues of why math matters. I especially enjoyed the end where Ellenberg focused on the way learning requires the to hold two contrary opinions simultaneously, or, to try to prove your theorem by day and disprove it by night.

3.5 stars for me. This book could've been something so much more but wasn't. Probably still a perfectly fine read for someone else though.

How Not to Be Wrong gehört zu den wenigen Büchern, bei denen es mir unglaublich schwer fällt, mich kurz zu fassen. Gleichzeitig fühle ich mich aber in dem, was ich dazu zu sagen habe, unglaublich befangen. Vielleicht ist das so bei Themen, die einem irgendwie am Herzen liegen. In diesem konkreten Fall ist das Thema die Mathematik.

Jordan Ellenberg, US-amerikanischer Mathematiker, hat mit How Not to Be Wrong ein populärwissenschaftliches Buch geschrieben, mit dem er versucht, ein Bewusstsein dafür zu schaffen, dass Mathematik so ziemlich jeden Bereich des täglichen Lebens berührt; selbst jene, bei denen es auf den ersten Blick nicht so scheint.

"The lessons of mathematics are simple ones and there are no numbers in them: that there is structure in the world; that we can hope to understand some of it and not just gape at what our senses present to us; that our intuition is stronger with a formal exoskeleton than without one. And that mathematical certainity is one thing, the softer convictions we find attached to us in everyday life another, and we should keep track of the difference if we can." (p. 437)

Auf humorvolle Weise bahnt sich Ellenberg seinen Weg durch die Themen Linearity, Inference, Expectation, Regression und Existence. Zur Veranschaulichung wählt er dabei bewusst alltägliche(re) Szenarien wie die Lotterie in Massachusetts, politische Wahlen – hier liegt der Fokus auf den USA, wo Ellenberg lebt - oder Michael Drosnins Bestseller [b:The Bible Code|521542|The Bible Code|Michael Drosnin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1349063782l/521542._SX50_.jpg|1456262]. Was auf den ersten Blick weniger mathematisch erscheint, wird schließlich dank der richtigen Fragestellung auf eine mathematische Ebene gehoben, die Ellenberg im Folgenden sehr präzise und verständlich erklärt, analysiert und, um einen differenzierteren Blick zu ermöglichen, teils erweitert oder anpasst. Er verzichtet dabei weitestgehend auf Formeln, veranschaulicht das, was er zu sagen hat, lieber mit Worten oder Illustrationen. Er macht das, was in der Vorstellung vieler abgehoben ist, sicht- und greifbar. Auch, wenn sich der Autor weitestgehend bemüht, Probleme beginnend bei Null aufzuarbeiten, gibt es auch Stellen, wo bestimmtes Vorwissen, wie z.B. das Lösen quadratischer Gleichungen, vorausgesetzt wird oder er in komplexere Gebiete wie mehrdimensionale Geometrien oder relative Unendlichkeiten abdriftet. Wer an diesen Stellen den Faden verliert und ihm nicht mehr folgen kann, sollte das Buch nicht direkt zur Seite legen – denn er kommt immer wieder auf den Boden zurück. Nämlich dorthin, wo Mathematik für so ziemlich alle verständlich ist.

Jordan Ellenbergs Buch ist ein gelungener Versuch, Mathematik und Mathematiker*innen von ihrem (manchmal eher schlechten) Ruf zu befreien. „It's not like that, as we've seen. Mathematicians aren't crazy, and we aren't aliens, and we aren't mystics.“ (p. 436) Denn nach der Lektüre sollte klar sein: Wir sind eigentlich auch nur Menschen, die manchmal die richtigen Fragen stellen.

Undoubtedly interesting and great to visit, but I didn't find that this book distinguished itself from others of it's ilk. At times it fell deep into explanations that lost the attention of one particular reader.

Very informative, paradigm shifting book. Jordan Ellenberg shows you the world through his mathematical lens and challenges the question I asked everyday of calculus in 12th grade—When are we going to actually use this? The book was heavier and slower than I expected at some points. Certainly more informative than it was a pleasure read for me.