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Humble Pi

When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World

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Humble Pi

Auteur(s): Matt Parker
Narrateur(s): Matt Parker
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The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?”

“Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything

Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences.

Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean.

Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun. Mathématique Sciences sociales Drôle
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Ce que les critiques en disent

Praise for Matt Parker and Humble Pi:

“Parker is consistently very funny . . . . highly entertaining.” —The Guardian

“Parker has a sly wit. . . . A clever, amusing book about some of life’s more serious problems; highly recommended.” —Library Journal

“A fascinating and deeply surprising journey into the hilarious and sometimes tragic realm of mathematical error. Brilliant.” —Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist and Messy

“[Matt Parker] shows off math at its most playful and multifarious.” —Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to Be Wrong

“Matt Parker is some sort of unholy fusion of prankster, wizard, and brilliant nerd—math is rarely this clever, funny, and ever so slightly naughty.”—Adam Rutherford, author of Creation

“A pleasant exploration of our deeply held incompetence at mathematics. . . . Fun reading for nonmathematicians.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Numbers to die for. Four stars.” —Mail on Sunday

“Matt Parker has pulled off something wonderful . . . his stories are superb.” —The Daily Mail
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The book itself was quite good and entertaining, but I found it frustrating how often the author would make references along the lines of "in the book I included a picture of this," "the book has the full number written out," "I put this table in the print version," etc. Many other non-fiction audiobooks I've listened to include accompanying PDFs that contain all figures. I don't know why the publisher of this didn't include one of those, because I feel like the audiobook version robs you of the full experience.

To be absolutely clear, I am not saying to not read this book - it is still worth it! But if you're the type of person who enjoys both audiobooks and print or digital versions, I'd recommend getting a copy of the latter.

Not the best format

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The ever charming Matt Parker takes you on a light-hearted journey through some interesting facts through out the history. Any regular watchers of Matt's YouTube channel will enjoy the book immensely!

An interesting and entertaining audiobook

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The author goes over a whole litany of disasters, major an minor, that occurred over history because of math mistakes. He then proceeds to tell you where they went wrong. The stories are interesting and the math is presented in an easy to understand way. There are a few places in the book that he refers to the printed version because reading a long stream of numbers would make no sense but it would make sense if you saw it on the page. Those instances are few, and don't detract from the book.

It might make you afraid to fly

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Well, here is an author who claims to be a “stand-up mathematician”… and who delivers.

This book is no doubt a compendium of some of his material. It includes a slew of anecdotes pertaining to mathematical errors. Some are relative to dates, such as a Russian team arriving days late at the 1908 Olympics because it was not using the Gregorian calendar. Others involve arithmetical errors, confusion between pounds and newtons, etc. Though there is no blatant thread of thought, the result is at once entertaining and enlightening in encouraging caution.

In the audio version, the author himself does the narration, with a definite knack for storytelling and a unique partly Australian and partly British accent.

This work is recommended to all, including those who are not particularly inclined towards math.

Wonderful!

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As the conclusion at the end makes clear, this review of mistakes is valuable context for understanding errors, how they happen and what we can learn from trying to understand them.

Great read. Delightful as Matt always is.

Better than a Parker Square

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