Download A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours AudioBook Free

Employing intuitive ideas from mathematics, this quirky "meta-memoir" raises questions about our lives that most of us don't think to ask but probably should: What part of memory space is reliable simple fact, what part creative embellishment? Which favorite presuppositions are unfounded, which statistically biased? By conjoining two opposing mind-sets - the suspension of disbelief required in storytelling and the skepticism natural in the methodical method - best-selling mathematician John Allen Paulos has generated an unusual cross types, a composite of personal remembrances and mathematical methods to reevaluating them. Entertaining vignettes from Paulos's biography abound - ranging from a bullying mathematics teacher and a fabulous collection of football cards to affectionate crushes, a grandmother's petty larceny, and his quite unintended role in getting George Bush elected president in 2000. These vignettes serve as springboards to numerous revealing perspectives: Simple arithmetic puts lifelong practices in a dubious new light; higher-dimensional geometry helps us see that we're all somewhat peculiar; nonlinear dynamics clarifies the narcissism of small dissimilarities cascading into completely different siblings; logarithms and exponentials deliver insight on why we tend to become weary and jaded as we age; and there are methods and jokes, likelihood and coincidences, plus much more. For fans of Paulos or beginners to his work, this witty commentary on his life - and yours - is interesting listening.

Category: Scientists