- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (2 Mar 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140281797
- ISBN-13: 978-0140281798
- Product Dimensions: 19 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,016,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Mathematician John Allen Paulos bravely bridges the scientific and literary cultures with this amusing, enlightening look at numbers and stories. If you think those two things go together like a "horse and a paperclip," as Allen wryly observes, you only have to look at phenomena like the Bible codes, the stock market's ups and downs, and the Clinton sex scandal to begin to understand the hidden bonds between them. Put simply, mathematics can describe everything that happens, and everything that happens contextualises mathematics. In demonstrating this, Paulos continues the noble numeracy crusade he began with A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and Beyond Numeracy. Perhaps the most compelling thought experiments in the book are those of the statistics of stereotyping and race relations. Paulos shows, mathematically, that minority status makes achieving equality extraordinarily difficult.
If you want to keep hold of your comfortable worldview, don't read Once Upon a Number. But you'll be missing out on an unforgettable reminder of what chance, coincidence and odds really mean, along with several valuable life lessons that may help you understand lost socks, racism and mistaken identity. --Therese Littleton, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
The human imagination seems able to explore two very different worlds: the realm of mathematics, statistics and exact science, and the contrasting world of personal experience. This book explores the unexpected relationships that tie these two worlds together.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I saw the Salon review of this and promptly ordered it. A little trepidatious at first, I thought the book might be a rehash of Innumeracy and A Mathematician reads the Newspaper, which I loved. I was wrong. The book has Paulos's wry, witty tone and the many examples and insights are characteristically quirky, but the topic is very different - the similarities and differences between stories and mathematics, between their associated logics and world views, and the different mindsets they bring about. Somehow he relates Murphy's Law, the limited complexity of the human brain, topical news stories, bible codes, race issues, and many other amusing tidbits into a coherent argument about our place in the world. And there isn't an equation in sight.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am a mathematical psychologist, a term viewed by some as a contradiction in terms. It is not certain that John Allen Paulo's book Once Upon A Number could have spared me some of the most embarrassing moments of my life but it sure would have helped.
Being acutely aware of the irrational but real boundaries between people who think in terms of formula and numbers and those who think with metaphors and analogies might have prevented some rejected papers, confused audiences and irrational abstracts. I am not sure about how well I have learned the lesson, but at least I have been properly warned. Valuable book!
William S. Dockens III PhD.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book presents in a delightfully entertaining way the missed opportunities that result in the separation of quantitative and qualitative worlds. It uses a series of anecdotes and stories to show that keeping these two worlds apart makes it all too easy to lie with statistics and influence with idle speculation about coincidence and chance. The author suggests there are exciting new vistas to explore once we accept there is an intriguing 'third way' that straddles this great divide between quant. and qual. Opportunities emerge for everyone from the consumer, to the mathematician and the philosopher.
Reading this books one begins to understand a little more why questionnaires are becoming increasingly unwelcome and why trust in expert evidence is dwindling.
The author pricks the ego of many entrenched interests but never with malice and always with a wry smile.
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