Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World
Matt Parker
Jan 2020 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Matt Parker
4.9star
14 reviews
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Audiobook
9 hr 33 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
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AN ADAM SAVAGE BOOK CLUB PICK
The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?”Â
“Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent EverythingÂ
Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences.
Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean.
Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.
Â
AN ADAM SAVAGE BOOK CLUB PICK
The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?”Â
“Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent EverythingÂ
Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences.
Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean.
Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.
Ratings and reviews
4.9
14 reviews
Bart Lavis
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January 22, 2024
An enjoyable book of all things that can go wrong without paying attention to your math! Lighthearted, but don't let that fool you. The seriousness of some of the mistakes is truly deadly.
Michael Rothstein
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August 17, 2020
I stumbled across this audio book while browsing and after 30 seconds listening to the sample, I was hooked. Quite interesting and surprisingly funny, Matt Parker was thoroughly enjoyable as an author and even more so as the narrator of this book. It never felt like he was reading words on a page (or screen) and it felt he was relaying stories in an extremely natural way.
Betty Chu
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March 28, 2020
Great book! Very fun and could relate to real life in several moments! A very good description of how things work or how they shouldn't work! 🤓
About the author
Matt Parker is the author of Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension as well as a stand-up comedian and YouTuber with over 100 million views. He writes about math for The Guardian, hosts the Science Channel's Outrageous Acts of Science, and appears regularly on various BBC shows including More or Less, The Infinite Monkey Cage, and QI. Matt performs his math stand-up routines in front of audiences of thousands and is the first person to use an overhead projector at the Hammersmith Apollo since Pink Floyd.
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