
How Not to Be Wrong
The Power of Mathematical Thinking
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Narrated by:
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Jordan Ellenberg
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By:
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Jordan Ellenberg
About this listen
The Freakonomics of math - a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands.
The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.
Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?
How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.
Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.
©2014 Jordan Ellenberg (P)2014 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Brilliantly engaging...Ellenberg’s talent for finding real-life situations that enshrine mathematical principles would be the envy of any math teacher. He presents these in fluid succession, like courses in a fine restaurant, taking care to make each insight shine through, unencumbered by jargon or notation. Part of the sheer intellectual joy of the book is watching the author leap nimbly from topic to topic, comparing slime molds to the Bush-Gore Florida vote, criminology to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The final effect is of one enormous mosaic unified by mathematics." (Manil Suri, The Washington Post)
"Easy-to-follow, humorously presented.... This book will help you to avoid the pitfalls that result from not having the right tools. It will help you realize that mathematical reasoning permeates our lives - that it can be, as Mr. Ellenberg writes, a kind of 'X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world'." (Mario Livio, The Wall Street Journal)
"Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read.... How Not to Be Wrong can help you explore your mathematical superpowers." (Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American)
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Learn About Statistics Without All The Math
- By Scott Fabel on 03-09-13
By: Nate Silver
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The Drunkard's Walk
- How Randomness Rules Our Lives
- By: Leonard Mlodinow
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.
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Interested in statistics? This is the book.
- By Robert on 02-21-14
By: Leonard Mlodinow
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Math Without Numbers
- By: Milo Beckman
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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This is an audiobook about math, but it contains no numbers. Math Without Numbers is a vivid, conversational, and wholly original guide to the three main branches of abstract math - topology, analysis, and algebra - which turn out to be surprisingly easy to grasp. This audiobook upends the conventional approach to math, inviting you to think creatively about shape and dimension, the infinite and infinitesimal, symmetries, proofs, and how these concepts all fit together. Join this freewheeling tour of the inimitable joys and unsolved mysteries of this curiously powerful subject.
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please leave your politics at home
- By david malaguti on 09-23-23
By: Milo Beckman
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The Meaning of it All
- Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
- By: Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In this collection of lectures that Richard Feynman originally gave in 1963, unpublished during his lifetime, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist discusses several of the ultimate questions of science. What is the nature of the tension between science and religious faith? Why does uncertainty play such a crucial role in the scientific imagination? Is this really a scientific age?
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Meh....
- By Brain on 10-15-17
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How to Lie with Statistics
- By: Darrell Huff
- Narrated by: Bryan DePuy
- Length: 3 hrs
- Unabridged
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Darrell Huff's celebrated classic How to Lie With Statistics is a straightforward and engaging guide to understanding the manipulation and misrepresentation of information that could be lurking behind every graph, chart, and infographic. Originally published in 1954, it remains as relevant and necessary as ever in our digital world, where information is king - and as easy to distort and manipulate as it is to access.
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No longer deceived
- By Richard on 06-14-16
By: Darrell Huff
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Algorithms to Live By
- The Computer Science of Human Decisions
- By: Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
- Narrated by: Brian Christian
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one's inbox to understanding the workings of human memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.
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Great listen, just don't expect tips!
- By Adam Hosman on 08-07-17
By: Brian Christian, and others
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The Data Detective
- Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics
- By: Tim Harford
- Narrated by: Tim Harford
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics - we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us”.
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I expected more
- By A. Visserman on 03-09-21
By: Tim Harford
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Humble Pi
- When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World
- By: Matt Parker
- Narrated by: Matt Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Fascinating & enlightening even for da mathphobic✏️
- By C. White on 01-23-20
By: Matt Parker
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Bernoulli's Fallacy
- Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science
- By: Aubrey Clayton
- Narrated by: Tim H. Dixon
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Aubrey Clayton traces the history of how statistics went astray, beginning with the groundbreaking work of the 17th-century mathematician Jacob Bernoulli and winding through gambling, astronomy, and genetics. Clayton recounts the feuds among rival schools of statistics, exploring the surprisingly human problems that gave rise to the discipline and the all-too-human shortcomings that derailed it.
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Rigorously Bayesian
- By Anonymous User on 01-25-22
By: Aubrey Clayton
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Superforecasting
- The Art and Science of Prediction
- By: Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week's meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts' predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight.
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Great for Experts
- By Michael on 02-20-17
By: Philip Tetlock, and others
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The Art of Statistics
- How to Learn from Data
- By: David Spiegelhalter
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Statistics are everywhere, as integral to science as they are to business, and in the popular media hundreds of times a day. In this age of big data, a basic grasp of statistical literacy is more important than ever if we want to separate the fact from the fiction, the ostentatious embellishments from the raw evidence - and even more so if we hope to participate in the future, rather than being simple bystanders.
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very good statistics overview
- By Tom on 11-29-19
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Infinite Powers
- How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves. Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
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Not written to be read aloud
- By A Reader in Maine on 02-21-20
By: Steven Strogatz
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Love Triangle
- How Trigonometry Shapes the World
- By: Matt Parker
- Narrated by: Matt Parker
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Trigonometry is perhaps the most essential concept humans have ever devised. The simple yet versatile triangle allows us to record music, map the world, launch rockets into space, and be slightly less bad at pool. Triangles underpin our day-to-day lives and civilization as we know it. In Love Triangle, Matt Parker argues we should all show a lot more love for triangles, along with all the useful trigonometry and geometry they enable.
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Matt’s enthusiasm is great
- By Sam Firestone on 03-31-25
By: Matt Parker
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The Theory That Would Not Die
- How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy
- By: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. Sharon Bertsch McGrayne here explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it.
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Who is the intended audience?
- By Billy on 07-21-14
Great book
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Reasoning
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I don’t write reviews
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Very enlightening
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listen to this before taking stats
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Somewhat interesting
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It applies basic but important lessons in mathematics (specially from probability) to a varied list of examples, from war to lottery to religion to wearing the same shirt day after day. This is a refreshing take on how mathematics is a tool to analyze the world around us.
Interesting use of mathematics to think critically
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hard to follow
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Very Enlightening
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Interesting book to listen to!
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