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Amazon.co.uk Review
This is the book that made "innumeracy" a household word, at least in some households. Paulos admits that "at least part of the motivation for any book is anger, and this book is no exception. I'm distressed by a society which depends so completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent to the innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens".
But that is not all that drives him. The difference between our pretensions and reality is absurd and humorous, and the numerate can see this better than those who don't speak math. "I think there's something of the divine in these feelings of our absurdity, and they should be cherished, not avoided".
Paulos is not entirely successful at balancing anger and absurdity, but he tries. His diatribes against astrology, bad math education, Freud and willful ignorance are leavened with jokes, mathematical or the sort (he claims) favoured by the numerate.
It remains to be seen if Innumeracy will indeed be able, as Hofstadter hoped, to "help launch a revolution in math education that would do for innumeracy what Sabin and Salk did for polio"-- but many of the improvements Paulos suggested have come to pass within 10 years. Only time will tell if the generation raised on these new principles is more resistant to innumeracy--and need only worry about being incomputable. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Review
John Allen Paulos is the maths teacher I found twenty-five years too late (Sean French Independent )
Innumeracy would improve the quality of thinking of virtually anyone (Isaac Asimov )
Paulos provides much in this book that is thought-provoking and informative. Markets can sucker even a maths professor. At least he can explain why (Financial Times )
Paulos mixes high mathematics with the kind of stories that make you laugh (Daily Telegraph )
Taught me more about the handling of numbers in real life than a thousand hours of maths teaching (Simon Jenkins The Times )
This elegant little survival manual is brief, witty and full of practical applications (Stefan Kanfer Time )
Innumeracy would improve the quality of thinking of virtually anyone (Isaac Asimov )
Paulos provides much in this book that is thought-provoking and informative. Markets can sucker even a maths professor. At least he can explain why (Financial Times )
Paulos mixes high mathematics with the kind of stories that make you laugh (Daily Telegraph )
Taught me more about the handling of numbers in real life than a thousand hours of maths teaching (Simon Jenkins The Times )
This elegant little survival manual is brief, witty and full of practical applications (Stefan Kanfer Time )
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 20 people found the following review helpful
"A million dollars, a billion, a trillion, whatever. It doesn't matter as long as we do something about the problem." Does it matter, or does it not? Perhaps you can more easily visualize what jumping by six orders of magnitude means if you divide it by 10^6: "One dollar, a thousand dollars, a million..."
Or perhaps consider this: Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 and was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946, and was elected President in 1960. Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy. Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy was born in 1939. There is some mysterious harmony ruling the world, isn't it?
Most likely not. Politicians' careers do follow certain patterns - people are very rarely indeed elected presidents at 19, then elected to congress at 86. Furthermore, there are very few records of assassins in the age group over 65, for instance. You also have to take into account that, taking into account US constitution, there is nil probability that Kennedy would have been elected president in 1961, or 1958. And Lincoln isn't all that uncommon as the last name, is it? And finally, we have been rather selective which facts we have included: Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 and died in 1965, while John F. Kennedy was born in 1917 and died in 1963, for instance, but along with all other facts this simply didn't fit the intended story, so it was omitted.
Throughout the book, Paulos tries to demystify such mysterious occurances by providing more or less elaborated examples, where he applies combinatorics, probability and statistics. All relatively simple concepts, but people tend to forget about them once they leave high school. Is it true that if the flipped coin has come up heads for fifteen consecutive rows, it is much more likely to come up tails on its next flip? And what about the statistics claiming that one out in eleven women will develop breast cancer, on the average?
Some sections - whining about the incompetent elementary school math teachers etc. - are too whinny for their own good, but otherwise this short booklet is a fun read. But then again, with a degree in physics, I probably already fall among the numerate. What I was very much missing, though, is a list of references from which professor Paulos has taken his examples from.
A short but highly entertaining book on numeracy. However it is presented in such a way that you want to read more. I suggest it is mandatory reading for all as I am well aware that most people are hazy when statistics are quoted - and in an era where dubious figures are used to gain sales or electoral success it becomes a necessity to recognise statistical lies.
Whilst I am reasonably numerate it is easy to believe that people are generally very much the same and as numerate as I. This however is not the case. Being able to manage numbers used on a day to day basis is not much use when very large numbers are concerned. This is an eye-opening start to the book and provides a glimpse of how complex life is. As an example Paulos gives the example of a human squatting down is roughly a metre in diameter. A cell is the human body is as a human body to the State of Rhode Island*. A virus within a human is as a human is to the Earth!!.
I may not have understood all the fine detail however I was not trying to learn "maths" but to get an impression of what numbers can and cannot do and on that basis it is beautifully ptiched.
*And as a reviewer I looked it up - it is 1,214 sq miles (3,140 km2)
Whilst I am reasonably numerate it is easy to believe that people are generally very much the same and as numerate as I. This however is not the case. Being able to manage numbers used on a day to day basis is not much use when very large numbers are concerned. This is an eye-opening start to the book and provides a glimpse of how complex life is. As an example Paulos gives the example of a human squatting down is roughly a metre in diameter. A cell is the human body is as a human body to the State of Rhode Island*. A virus within a human is as a human is to the Earth!!.
I may not have understood all the fine detail however I was not trying to learn "maths" but to get an impression of what numbers can and cannot do and on that basis it is beautifully ptiched.
*And as a reviewer I looked it up - it is 1,214 sq miles (3,140 km2)
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This is a great book. Every year in the UK 3,000 people die in car accidents, 600,000 people die in total, and about 35 people become famous. But that doesn't stop my 13 year old niece being absolutely sure she is going to be famous. She can't understand that the odds of failure and some personal disaster such as illness or a car accident vastly outstrip any chances of fame. This book is about how we all fail to understand numbers and probabilities. We are just awful at estimating the likelihood of things. We daydream that one day we will win the lottery and that the lunchtime cigarette is not worth thinking about, when in truth we will never have much money and we will die of lung cancer.
The book is depressing in some ways, because it is yet another reminder of how thick one is, and that one is part of very dim species. It is also a liberation, and hopefully should make the reader awaken to some home truths. Expertly written with a ranting tone of exasperation at human stupidity, it's also dead funny.
The book is depressing in some ways, because it is yet another reminder of how thick one is, and that one is part of very dim species. It is also a liberation, and hopefully should make the reader awaken to some home truths. Expertly written with a ranting tone of exasperation at human stupidity, it's also dead funny.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Doesn't live up to it's title
It reads more like a rant than a coherent book, it's dominated by repetitive examples of usages of numbers and quotations which seem more chosen by the author to show off his... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr I
An Imaginative Look at the World of Numeracy!
To me, the most intriguing aspect of this book was Professor Paulos's ability to take simple math concepts that I learned way back when . . . Read more
Published on 25 Jun 2004 by Donald Mitchell
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