Or, to be precise, what happens when maths goes wrong in the real world.

And most of the time this maths works quietly behind the scenes, until it doesnt.

Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near-misses and mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman empire and a hapless Olympic shooting team, Matt Parker shows us the bizarre ways maths trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world.

This book shows how, by making maths our friend, we can learn from its pitfalls.

Humble Pi Math Errors Code And Three

It also contains puzzles, challenges, geometric socks, jokes about binary code and three deliberate mistakes.

The Guardian Matt Parker has pulled off something wonderful...

He is fluent in binary and could write your name in a sequence of noughts and ones in seconds.

When hes not working as the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, hes performing in sold-out live comedy shows, spreading his love of maths via TV and radio, or converting photographs into Excel spreadsheets.

He is the author of Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.

Thats a shame, as the idea of the book was appealing, which was why I bought it.

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We would all be better off if everyone saw mathematics as a practical ally.

But it is only trying to help Mathematics is a friend which can fill the gaps in what our brains can do naturally.

Luckily, even though we dont like sharing our own mistakes, we love to listen to tales about what happens when maths errors make the everyday go horribly wrong.

Matt Parker explores and explains near misses and mishaps with planes, bridges, the internet and big data as a way of showing us not only how important maths is but how we can use it to our advantage.

Humble Pi Math Errors Series Of Disaster

This comedy of errors is a brilliantly told series of disaster stories with a happy ending.

Keep the story going.,inlineContent:u003cdiv idaud-narration-modal classa-section narrationnnnu003cdiv classa-row a-spacing-base a-spacing-top-basenu003cimg altKeep the story going src classnarration-headernu003cdivnnu003cdiv classa-rownu003cdiv classa-column a-span6 narration-leftnu003cpu003cspan classtext-highlightSwitchu003cspan between reading the Kindle book and listening to the Audible narration without losing u003cbryour place with Whispersync for Voice.u003cpnu003cpu003cspan classtext-highlightSyncu003cspan your book across different devices and always start again where you had stopped.u003cpnu003cpu003cspan classtext-highlightSaveu003cspan on Audible narration and get a reduced price when you buy it together with the Kindle book.u003cpnu003cpu003cspan classtext-boldListenu003cspan on the Kindle App (iOSAndroid).

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Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon.

It was an entertaining read, and my 10 year old also read in one sitting.

Anything that gets a 10 year old to read about maths, physics or engineering is good in my books.

If you like things like the Ig Nobels or books by Randall Munroe, then youll enjoy this.

If youre looking for a serious mathematics textbook then this is not it (nor does it claim to be at any point).

The examples actually based on maths might have made a good magazine article, but instead we have a book typeset in a big font and padded out to over 300 pages.

There are some interesting examples of fences and posts problems, binary numbers wrapping round to start again at 0 in computers, properties of random numbers, and errors of units and combining different levels of precision.

To make the book more interesting and longer, the author then has to borrow from other disciplines like product design, human factors and management science.

A mechanic confusing two sizes of screws on an aircraft, and the process failures that allowed this to ever happen, is not really maths, and nor is having badly designed fire doors on a building that open inwards and jam shut in a crush.

Maths may be the queen of all sciences but that doesnt mean it can appropriate from other disciplines to try and make itself more interesting, without giving any credit.

Instead of this book, buy The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman - its much better.

Two stars because this is about 25 of a book of interesting maths examples, and 35 of padding appropriated from other disciplines, because apparently there isnt enough interesting maths to make a whole book.

Humble Pi Download Math Errors