“How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking” by Jordan Ellenberg
Jordan Ellenberg is a math PhD graduate from Harvard whom later become the professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the mathematics consultant for the 2017 movie “Gifted”, a story about a math prodigy.
These two contrasting facts about him are pretty much what this book represents, the serious and the amusing. And it is such an intelligent book, that teaches us advanced logical reasoning of math using everyday examples and the wider current affairs.
I initially got lost when Ellenberg lays out the grown up formulas or even the math tutorials that brings back fond, fond memories from school. But I soon realized that the math itself can be treated as the blueprint on the background, just like we don’t need to fully understand the blueprint or the engineering part of a car in order to drive it.
But still, it helps to know the inner workings, so that we can be fully aware of what’s going on and have lesser probability to be wrong about things. This is what the book is all about.
“Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world” Ellenberg remarks. “Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder, and more meaningful way.”
And to illustrate his points, he uses some of the most interesting stories from a wide range of history and complement them with a playful demonstration of statistics. Stories from the mathematics to figure out how to upgrade fighter jet during WW2, to calculating a missile projection, a story about a stockbroker’s scam, the math of lottery, casino gambling, how to find missing planes, and many more, all the way to the mathematics of God.
Indeed, such a wide range of topics, hence no wonder the book is often dubbed as the Freakonomics of math. But is it really? Despite the occasionally funny and the overall friendly tone of the book, make no mistake, this is still a serious book about math. So, it is nothing like the wacky and fun Freakonomics (for economics) or the even wackier Why Do Men Have Nipples (for medicine).
However, as Ellenberg explains, “[w]e tend to teach mathematics as a long list of rules. You learn them in order and you have to obey them, because if you don’t obey them you get a C-. This is not mathematics. Mathematics is the study of things that come out a certain way because there is no other way they could possibly be.”
Therefore, despite being a serious book, it is also a rebellious one that teaches math from an unorthodox approach: from the vantage point of the practical user rather than just the theories. No wonder that math lovers absolutely adore this book.
THE CHAOS THEORY 