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A review by p12rochakt
How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life by Jordan Ellenberg
3.0
The author puts forth a book in leisurely Mathematics (and plenty of Statistics too).
The book is broadly divided up into five sections (annotations mine):
1. Linearity: how to interpret graphs, and make sense of linear extrapolation
2. Inference: all about Statistical significance
3. Expectation: Probability
4. Regression: why big numbers average out in the long run
5. Existence: this is where the author lost me. This section pretty uch blurs out the line between Mathematics and Philosophy and I guess it was too much for me to handle.
Why I gave it 3/5: The book starts off solidly, with a nice little WWII story. The first few chapters read smooth, even for a layman like me.
But somewhere down the road, the tone suddenly changes. The writer tends to repeat himself far too many times, overuses footnotes and goes deep into the history of mathematical thought and philosophy (Interesting as that itself may be, wait - the title was hidden maths of everyday life right?).
The Positives:
I had always wondered about the Buffon's Needle Problem. This book does a fine job explaining it. And I was surprised to note that the author was a consultant for the TV show Numb3rs.
The book is broadly divided up into five sections (annotations mine):
1. Linearity: how to interpret graphs, and make sense of linear extrapolation
2. Inference: all about Statistical significance
3. Expectation: Probability
4. Regression: why big numbers average out in the long run
5. Existence: this is where the author lost me. This section pretty uch blurs out the line between Mathematics and Philosophy and I guess it was too much for me to handle.
Why I gave it 3/5: The book starts off solidly, with a nice little WWII story. The first few chapters read smooth, even for a layman like me.
But somewhere down the road, the tone suddenly changes. The writer tends to repeat himself far too many times, overuses footnotes and goes deep into the history of mathematical thought and philosophy (Interesting as that itself may be, wait - the title was hidden maths of everyday life right?).
The Positives:
I had always wondered about the Buffon's Needle Problem. This book does a fine job explaining it. And I was surprised to note that the author was a consultant for the TV show Numb3rs.