How Many Licks?: Or, How to Estimate Damn Near Anything
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Product Description
How many licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop? How many people are having sex at this moment? How long would it take a monkey on a typewriter to produce the plays of Shakespeare? For all those questions that keep you up at night, heres the way to answer them. And the beauty of it is that its all approximate! Using Enrico Fermis theory of approximation, Santos brings the world of numbers into perspective. For puzzle junkies and trivia fanatics, these 70 word puzzles will show the reader how to take a bit of information, add what they already know, and extrapolate an answer. Santos has done the impossible: make math and the multiple possibilities of numbers fun and informative. Can you really cry a river? Is it possible to dig your way out of jail with just a teaspoon and before your life sentence is up? Taking an academic subject and using it as the prism to view everyday off-the-wall questions as math problems to be solved is a natural step for the lovers of sudoku, cryptograms, word puzzles, and other thought-provoking games.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I ordered a brand new copy and it came back with scuffs over the pages and the spine had already been bent! Not a happy customer since that was suppossed to be a present. Time was the only area in which it was ok as it didn't take too long to arrive but it was disapointing in appearence.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
13 reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Disappointing.
15 Nov 2009
Format:Kindle Edition
First off let me say that the topics chosen as illustrative examples are hilarious. There is just the right mix of geekiness and human interest. That being said I had hoped to read more about what constitutes a reasonable assumption since I was already competent at dimensional analysis. This book is just a collection of entertaining examples.
In addition the Kindle edition has very poor proofreading. Several words are missing letters and these errors could have been caught simply by running a spelling check. I am disappointed.
In addition the Kindle edition has very poor proofreading. Several words are missing letters and these errors could have been caught simply by running a spelling check. I am disappointed.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
How to: Take a guess, or use common sense!
13 Dec 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm not sure what I was expecting when I ordered this book, but I must admit that the clincher (for me, anyway) was the set of example questions listed on the product description - you have to admit, they were funny and intriguing.
Having read the book, I don't think I'm much better at "estimating damn near anything". In the first chapter, the book gives you some advice on how to start addressing a question - any question of approximation - and the rest of the book provides many exercises.
The gist of advice on approximating anything is: take a guess! How many dirt bike racers are in New York? Well, round up the total population of New York, apply exponential notation, decide on a reasonable maximum and minimum possible number of racers, etc.
Of course, there are some questions within the book that require knowledge of specific values, such as the elasticity of rubber, the pull of gravity, and the distance between the Earth and the Moon. For these questions you'll find the values at the back of the book. For other such values in real life just hope you paid attention in school.
There is no secret art in guesstimating anything - either take an educated guess or use some degree of common sense. I was hoping for something new to take away from this book, but found very little.
The sample problems presented in the book are great, though, and it has a very good format.
Having read the book, I don't think I'm much better at "estimating damn near anything". In the first chapter, the book gives you some advice on how to start addressing a question - any question of approximation - and the rest of the book provides many exercises.
The gist of advice on approximating anything is: take a guess! How many dirt bike racers are in New York? Well, round up the total population of New York, apply exponential notation, decide on a reasonable maximum and minimum possible number of racers, etc.
Of course, there are some questions within the book that require knowledge of specific values, such as the elasticity of rubber, the pull of gravity, and the distance between the Earth and the Moon. For these questions you'll find the values at the back of the book. For other such values in real life just hope you paid attention in school.
There is no secret art in guesstimating anything - either take an educated guess or use some degree of common sense. I was hoping for something new to take away from this book, but found very little.
The sample problems presented in the book are great, though, and it has a very good format.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
get your Fermi on
22 Oct 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great book for learning the famous estimation techniques of intellectual giant Enrico Fermi. An absolute must for anyone trying to impersonate a physicist at cocktail parties.
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