100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know: Math Explains Your World by John D. Barrow (PDF)

Description

“Where else does math become a romp, full of entertaining tricks and turns?”—Bryce Christensen, BooklistHave you ever considered why you always get stuck in the longest line? Why two’s company but three’s a crowd? Or why there are six degrees of separation instead of seven? In this hugely informative and endlessly entertaining book, John D. Barrow takes the most baffling of everyday phenomena and—with simple math, lucid explanations, and illustrations—explains why they work the way they do. His witty, crystal-clear answers shed light on the dark and shadowy corners of the physical world we all think we understand so well.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I want to like this book. I really do. I feel as if I’m admitting some sort of intellectual bankruptcy in saying: It’s too much. I think it would be over most people’s heads. Maybe it’s just me??For instance, no copyright infringement intended, but here is part of section 28:”Let’s pick the annual rainfall in the UK as our example. In the first year that we keep records the rainfall must be a record. In year two, if the rainfall is independent of what it was in year 1, then it has a chance of 1/2 of being a record beating the year 1 rainfall and a chance of 1/2 of not beating the rainfall. So the number of record years we expect in the first two years is 1 + 1/2. In year 3 there are just two ways in which the six possible ranking (i.e. a 1 in 3 chance) of rainfall in years 1, 2 and 3 could produce a record in year 3. SO the expected number of record years after 3 years of record keeping is 1 + 1/2 + 1/3. If you keep on going, applying the same reasoning to each new year, you will find that after n independent years of gathering data, the expected number of record years is the sun of a series of n fractions: 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 +… 1/nThis is a famous series that mathematicians call the ‘harmonic’ series. Let’s label as H(n) its sum after n terms are totalled; so we see that H(1) = 1, H(2) = 1.5, H(3) = 1.833 … and so on. … What does this tell us? Suppose that we were to apply our formula to the rainfall records for some place in the UK from 1748 to 2004 – a period of 256 years. Then we predict that we should find only H(256) = 6.12, or about 6 record years of high (or low) rainfall. If we look at the rainfall records kept by Kew Gardens for this period then this is the number of record years there have been. We would have to wait for more than a thousand years to have a good chance of finding even 8 record years.”Maybe it’s just me, but I would looking for a coffee table/bathroom book that would be full of interesting little factoids that people could share in 2 minutes WITHOUT a pencil and paper.I also ordered “I wish I knew that Science” and that is much more what I was looking for. If you and your audience are more on the academic side, this might work, otherwise I’d go with the “I wish I knew that” series.

⭐It seems the author has finally exhausted the list of topics he covers so well in his other books. This is a good book for reading in the bathroom but not for much else. It’s a compilation of short articles covering a wide range of topics with nothing to connect them so it lacks focus. The very British writing directed at the British reader makes some of the articles rather plodding and requires a grip of the vernacular to understand what the author is on about. Some of the information is just plain wrong – his description of “Why Does the Other Queue Always Move Faster?” rambles around but never does get to the answer – if there are four lines and you pick one, you have only a 25% chance of joining the fastest line/queue (and a 75% chance of the “other” line moving faster). Some of the information manages to make relatively simple concepts unnecessarily dense through the use of mathematical formulas where descriptions would add clarity. Mildly amusing but don’t look for anything even close to the “Essential” mentioned in the title. But one wouldn’t be reading this in the bathroom if one were seeking revelation, would one? I would truly enjoy hearing the topics covered in this book from the author over a pint (or two) at the pub. He just should not have tried to write it down and publish it as it detracts from his other writings.

⭐Professor Barrows takes a slight diversion from his recent books, by assemblying 100 precis-like mathematical topics for one’ s amusement. Each topic is no greater than a couple of pages, and makes incremental reading (such as while at an airport or train/subway station) convenient. His style is easy to digest, and his introductory quotations aptly ensconces the topics to be discussed. For those wanting more background or details, most of the topics are footnoted at the back of the book.This book is a fun read for any mathematics afficionado.

⭐Some of the math included is incorrect…Pg 229 Pencil Lead volume estimate is 150pi. 2mm line width x 20nm thickness = 4.0•10⁻⁸ mm² not 4.0•10⁻⁷ mm²…(150π mm³)/(4.0•10⁻⁸ mm²) = 11.780 km, not 1,178 km.

⭐I liked the nice little math factoids that were interesting. Each little topic is a interesting tidbit of a math related item. I find them interesting subway reads. There are quite a few examples that use cricket, British currency, and other British localisms that make some of the topics hard to follow, but overall, it is quite enjoyable.

⭐Numerous of the 100 essays in the book have illustrations which were strangely omitted from the Kindle version. It makes it rather annoying to have the text reference the illustration and have to simply imagine it in your mind. If you want to read this, I recommend taking the trouble to track down a paper copy.

⭐I loved this book. As someone who is pretty maths literate I found plenty of new ways to think about numbers. Simply brilliant.

⭐I read this book in a day from cover to cover in a day. I found it exceedingly accessible and would recommend it for anyone who has/had a maths phobia.

⭐A very enjoyable read, with some very interesting factoids inside. Not a book you read in one go, more a read a few pages and putdown book.

⭐The author, a professor of mathematical sciences, presents 100 topics of various sorts, each of which has a mathematical element. I found some of the subjects presented to be absolutely fascinating while others much less so; but this is to be expected since it depends on the interests of the individual reader.Overall, I found this book to be quite intriguing, educational and a pleasure to read. However, I did find a few explanations that I felt were a bit lacking in clarity. For example, the reader may come upon a puzzling sentence which turns out to be extremely important for understanding the topic at hand. In other cases, formulas are presented with insufficient background/source information. Although these issues can be frustrating, I found them to be sufficiently infrequent so as not to detract from the overall entertainment value of the book.I found the author’s prose to be quite chatty, friendly and lively. Also, I do believe that the book is highly accessible – even to the mathematically challenged – since the author has striven to explain much by simply using words and diagrams; consequently, formulas are not used as often as one might expect in such a book.This book would likely be of interest to science buffs but also to anyone interested in how much of our world can be described through mathematical concepts.

⭐One starts looking at nature with different eyes after reading this. Important stuff told very well. A very good introduction for young kids on how mathematics matters in the real world.

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