Explores the mathematician's method of analyzing life, from the everyday to the cosmic, showing us which numbers to defend, which ones to ignore and when to change the equation entirely. This book tells us that maths touches on everything we do, and a little mathematical knowledge reveals the hidden structures that lie beneath the chaotic surface.
Can maths help you win the lottery? Meet the right partner? Get to the airport on time? Prove the existence of God? 'An atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense', maths touches everything we do. Here Jordan Ellenberg shows how we can all use it to become better thinkers.
'Funny, incisive, so gloriously readable . . . we dismiss maths at our peril, and this book charmingly, persuasively, puts us straight.' James McConnachie, Sunday Times
'Ellenberg runs the numbers like a magician. He can't save you from life, but he can save you from everyday error.' Iain Finlayson, The Times
'Lucid and witty . . . If only all maths lessons were like this.' Orlando Bird, Financial Times
'Brilliantly engaging . . . sheer intellectual joy.' Washington Post
Jordan Ellenberg is a Professor of Mathematics at University of Wisconsin, and the 'Do the Math' columnist at Slate. He has lectured around the world on his research in number theory, and delivered one of the plenary addresses at the 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings, the largest math conference in the world. His novel The Grasshopper King was shortlisted for the NYPL Young Lions Award, and he writes regularly for The New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post and Wired.