About the book
Jordan Ellenberg sets out to show that mathematics is less a set of dull school rules than a way of seeing the structure under everyday life. The book is arranged in parts, the first on linearity and the second on inference, with examples ranging from the Laffer curve and obesity statistics to lottery schemes, a dead salmon in an MRI scanner, the Bible code and p-hacking in published research. Along the way he takes up regression to the mean, Berkson's paradox, the replicability crisis in psychology and the question of who really won Florida in 2000. Free of jargon, it is meant for general readers rather than specialists.
Bill Gates called the writing funny and accessible, unusual for a math book, and described it as a love letter to mathematics. Auston Bunsen, co-founder of CBlocks, said it renewed his appetite for math.
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This book has 2 recommendations
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
The writing is funny, smooth, and accessible -- not what you might expect from a book about math. What Ellenberg has written is ultimately a love letter to math. If the stories he tells add up to a larger lesson, it’s that 'to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason' -- and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time.
Auston Bunsen (Co-Founder/CBlocks)
I’ve got a few, one book that really impacted me early on as someone coming from a middle-class family was “Rich dad, Poor dad”. Since then I’ve read many books but one that really stands out is “How not to be wrong” by Jordan Ellenberg which really reignited my appetite & appreciation for math.
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