Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences (Penguin Press Science) (Paperback)

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.

If you are feeling cowed about your math ability, take heart! Most of the concepts here you can handle. For example, can you multiply two numbers together? You can answer "yes" to my question if you can do so with a calculator. If so, you can appreciate almost all of the examples in the book.

Professor Paulos has a mind that works differently and more inquisitively from mine, but I enjoyed learning how his thoughts. He thinks about topics like how long it would take dump trucks to excavate Mount Fuji, how many times a deck of cards need to be shuffled to become random, and what the Earned Run Average is for a pitcher who lasts one-third inning and gives up 5 runs. I realized that if I thought about more things like this, I would develop new perspectives on the world.

He makes a helpful attempt to create solutions so that more people can appreciate the world in a quantitative sense. What do we lose if we don't? Well, those who don't learn a little math will end up in careers that pay a lot less. Social resources will be misapplied to problems that are less serious (obscure diseases and terrorism get a lot more attention to reducing accidental deaths among young people, which is a greater danger). We will make bad resource decisions in our own lives.

I also appreciated how few people can use mathematics in creative ways to solve problems. I suspect from this experience that there's a higher level of mathematical thinking that Professor Paulos did not explain in his book that we would all benefit from learning. Where do we start? I can hardly wait to learn!