how not to be wrong

blogs/2023/01/08/how-not-to-be-wrong.md

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+# How Not To Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life
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+_How Not To Be Wrong_ by Jordan Ellenberg explores mathematical concepts and ideas which permeate our everyday life.
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+A broad look at mathematical principles which govern some parts of everyday life, and some parts of the not-so-everyday life.
+Generally well-written and approachable, as someone with a maths-adjacent background, there were some parts that I was familiar with, and others less so.
+The author has a sense of humour, and writes well about topics he clearly understands deeply, mostly without boring the reader.
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+I particularly enjoyed the first few chapters, where a difference is established between the "default" view of mathematics as purely a numbers game about finding exact answers to questions, versus the author's view that it's about finding the questions to ask in the first place.
+Such questions include those such as "how Swedish is too Swedish?", "does lung cancer cause smoking?" and "can slime mold predict elections?".
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+The book reminded me a bit of Chaos: Making a New Science which I read at the beginning of 2022, though less dry, and pitched to a more general audience.
+I enjoyed some specific parts of the book a lot - particularly those involving geometry and calculus - though could have done without the extensive pieces on statistics, which was always my least favourite sub-discipline at school.