How Not to Be Wrong

The Power of Mathematical Thinking

De: Jordan Ellenberg

Narrado por: Jordan Ellenberg

The Freakonomics of math - a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands.

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.

Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.

Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

©2014 Jordan Ellenberg (P)2014 Penguin Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Brilliantly engaging...Ellenberg’s talent for finding real-life situations that enshrine mathematical principles would be the envy of any math teacher. He presents these in fluid succession, like courses in a fine restaurant, taking care to make each insight shine through, unencumbered by jargon or notation. Part of the sheer intellectual joy of the book is watching the author leap nimbly from topic to topic, comparing slime molds to the Bush-Gore Florida vote, criminology to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The final effect is of one enormous mosaic unified by mathematics." (Manil Suri, The Washington Post)

"Easy-to-follow, humorously presented.... This book will help you to avoid the pitfalls that result from not having the right tools. It will help you realize that mathematical reasoning permeates our lives - that it can be, as Mr. Ellenberg writes, a kind of 'X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world'." (Mario Livio, The Wall Street Journal)

"Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read.... How Not to Be Wrong can help you explore your mathematical superpowers." (Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American)

Great book

I found some of the mathematical equations difficult to follow by ear so it might be worth getting the digital version to follow along with, but I found the topic approachable and very interesting.

Reasoning

Lovely book on reasoning. I reccomend it to anyone interested in the study of critical thinking

I don’t write reviews

This book was ******* great! I really can’t explain how great it was. It’s worth your time.

Very enlightening

Interesting and enlightening. It is a little bit difficult to follow the equation and numbers in the audible version though. But one can still get a general idea.

listen to this before taking stats

Read this book before taking a stats class. It will make your life much better. fun and informative. Maybe if I had read this as a teenager I would have gone into the sciences....

Somewhat interesting

Has some good stories that will make you rethink how data and “facts” are presented. Unfortunately has too much of a political bend and clear agenda that author is pushing to be really a good book.

Interesting use of mathematics to think critically

I didn't particularly like the voice. However the content of the book kept me engaged; it was an enjoyable listen.

It applies basic but important lessons in mathematics (specially from probability) to a varied list of examples, from war to lottery to religion to wearing the same shirt day after day. This is a refreshing take on how mathematics is a tool to analyze the world around us.

hard to follow

kinda hard to underpin you are not good with maths. but other than that really interesting

Very Enlightening

I found this book to be very enlightening, tying the practical to its base in the seemingly esoteric and unknowable. It is an exceptional read, or listen, as the case may be.

Interesting book to listen to!

Useful in you don't want to get trapped into the to day statistics. Don't expect to learn math with it!