Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

Parker, Matt

ISBN 10: 0141989149 / ISBN 13: 9780141989143

Published by Penguin, 2020

Slight scratches to cover. Tanning to edge of pages Appears unread, may have minor damage from transit/storage. Next day dispatch from the UK (Mon-Fri). Please contact us with any queries. Seller Inventory # mon0000730994

Synopsis:

**The First Ever Maths Book to be a No.1 Bestseller**
'Wonderful ... superb' Daily Mail

What makes a bridge wobble when it's not meant to? Billions of dollars mysteriously vanish into thin air? A building rock when its resonant frequency matches a gym class leaping to Snap's 1990 hit I've Got The Power? The answer is maths. Or, to be precise, what happens when maths goes wrong in the real world.

As Matt Parker shows us, our modern lives are built on maths: computer programmes, finance, engineering. And most of the time this maths works quietly behind the scenes, until ... it doesn't. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near-misses and mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman empire and a hapless Olympic shooting team, Matt Parker shows us the bizarre ways maths trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world.

Mathematics doesn't have good 'people skills', but we would all be better off, he argues, if we saw it as a practical ally. This book shows how, by making maths our friend, we can learn from its pitfalls. It also contains puzzles, challenges, geometric socks, jokes about binary code and three deliberate mistakes. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.

About the Author: Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt Parker now lives in the overly quaint British town of Godalming. As well as talking about maths on TV and radio, Matt also performs sold-out live comedy shows and makes YouTube videos that have received tens of millions of views. The Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, Matt has a square named after him but he doesn't want to talk about it.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 2020
Binding: paperback
Condition: Very Good