How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg is a really fun read. Let’s re-think mathematics today.
Bill Gates gave the book quite a boost when he blogged How Math Secretly Affects Your Life. Ellenberg won the 2016 Euler Book Prize, awarded annually for an outstanding book about mathematics. Jordan is a math professor at UWMadison.
Look beyond the title. Math holds special psyche on many of us.
Yet it is critical now in the age of covid-19 to consider how math allows us to think profoundly to answer today’s challenges.
Jordan demonstrates how math empowers us. Many readers will ask “When Am I Going To Use This?”
Well how about now as we confront the covid-19 pandemic?
Or consider chapter four: How Much Is That In Dead Americans. Jordan addresses widespread miscalculations assessing war dead. Times may change but standards must remain.
Reading How Not to Be Wrong as covid-19 is devastating major cities across our country seems the exact right time to think mathematically.
Jordan’s tells the amazing story of Abraham Wald. As World War II ravaged Europe, Wald moved to America join a cast of amazing mathematicians at Columbia University.
Stunning to actually consider Wald worked alongside Oskar Morgenstern, who is attributed with inventing mathematical Game Theory. Wald worked for the Statistical Research Group with noted statistician Frederick Mosteller, who would found the Harvard Department of Statistics. Joining Wald was Leonard Jimmie Savage, a pioneer of decision theory, Norbert Wiener MIT professor of math and creator of cybernetics. Milton Friedman, a future Nobel prize winner was “often the fourth-smartest person in the room.“ A rather stunning story, yet an even more important lesson:
It was pleasing to see references to many small Wisconsin cities regarding “The Triumph of Mediocrity in Weather” on page 305 within chapter fifteen, Galton’s Ellipse.
Math is amazing.
Microsoft Research: Ellenberg discusses “How Not to Be Wrong”
The Royal Institute: Ellenberg discusses “How Not to Be Wrong”
CSPAN BookTV: Ellenberg discusses “How Not to Be Wrong”