Pluses and Minuses
How Math Solves Our Problems
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Narrated by:
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René Ruiz
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By:
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Stefan Buijsman
About this listen
A guide to changing how you think about numbers and mathematics, from the prodigy changing the way the world thinks about math.
We all know math is important: We live in the age of big data, our lives are increasingly governed by algorithms, and we're constantly faced with a barrage of statistics about everything from politics to our health. But what might be less obvious is how math factors into your daily life and what memorizing all of those formulae in school had to do with it. Math prodigy Stefan Buijsman is beginning to change that through his pioneering research into the way we learn math. Pluses and Minuses is based in the countless ways that math is engrained in our daily lives, and it shows listeners how math can actually be used to make problems easier to solve. Taking listeners on a journey around the world to visit societies that have developed without the use of math, and back into history to learn how and why various disciples of mathematics were invented, Buijsman shows the vital importance of math and how a better understanding of mathematics will give us a better understanding of the world as a whole.
Stefan Buijsman has become one of the most sought-after experts in math education after he completed his PhD at age 20. In Pluses and Minuses, he puts his research into practice to help anyone gain a better grasp of mathematics than they have ever had.
©2020 Stefan Buijsman (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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"An illuminating history of mathematics that also touches on fascinating philosophical questions surrounding math...Buijsman’s enjoyable survey makes a convincing argument that understanding these basics will provide the tools necessary to better evaluate the modern world’s information onslaught." (Publisher's Weekly)
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Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful “imagination-extenders and focus-holders” meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, and free will.
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Loved it, but some philosophy background needed.
- By LongerILiveLessIKnow on 11-14-13
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A Most Elegant Equation
- Euler’s Formula and the Beauty of Mathematics
- By: David Stipp
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Bertrand Russell wrote that mathematics can exalt "as surely as poetry". This is especially true of one equation: ei(pi) + 1 = 0, the brainchild of Leonhard Euler, the Mozart of mathematics. More than two centuries after Euler's death, it is still regarded as a conceptual diamond of unsurpassed beauty. Called Euler's identity, or God's equation, it includes just five numbers but represents an astonishing revelation of hidden connections.
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Good treatment of the subject
- By Kindle Customer on 04-09-18
By: David Stipp
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In Pursuit of Elegance
- Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing
- By: Matthew E. May
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In this thought-provoking exploration, Matthew May defines elegance as the elusive combination of unusual simplicity and surprising power, and pinpoints the four key elements that characterize it: seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, physics, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers a surprising array of stories that illustrate why what's "not there" often matters more than what is.
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I love elegance, but this book isn't elegant
- By Oliver Nielsen on 06-26-11
By: Matthew E. May
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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Complexity
- The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
- By: M. Mitchell Waldrop
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
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You won't learn anything you didn't know
- By Dennis E. Alwine on 12-26-20
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The Smart Swarm
- By: Peter Miller
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In a world where speed and flexibility are valued more than ever, leaders from the corporate boardroom to the military are looking for answers from seemingly unlikely experts - the ones in the grass, in the air, in the lakes, and in the woods. In this innovative audiobook, veteran National Geographic editor Peter Miller shows how swarm species, such as ants, bees, and fish, can teach us to tackle some of the most complex conundrums in business, politics, and technology.
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FLOCK TO THIS BOOK!
- By serine on 04-25-16
By: Peter Miller
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Too Big To Know
- Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room
- By: David Weinberger
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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We used to know how to know. We got our answers from books or experts. We'd nail down the facts and move on. But in the Internet age, knowledge has moved onto networks. There's more knowledge than ever, of course, but it's different. Topics have no boundaries, and nobody agrees on anything.Yet this is the greatest time in history to be a knowledge seeker - if you know how.
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Good to know ...
- By John B. Fisher on 01-24-12
By: David Weinberger
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Smart Thinking
- Three Essential Keys to Solve Problems, Innovate, and Get Things Done
- By: Art Markman
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Think smart people are just born that way? Think again. Drawing on diverse studies of the mind, from psychology to linguistics, philosophy, and learning science, Art Markman, Ph.D., demonstrates the difference between "smart thinking" and raw intelligence, showing listeners how memory works, how to learn effectively, and how to use knowledge to get things done. He then introduces his own three-part formula for listeners to employ "smart thinking" in their daily lives.
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I feel asleep in class
- By Lee on 12-14-12
By: Art Markman
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Outnumbered
- Exploring the Algorithms That Control Our Lives
- By: David Sumpter
- Narrated by: David West
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Our increasing reliance on technology and the Internet has opened a window for mathematicians and data researchers to gaze through into our lives. Using the data they are constantly collecting about where we travel, where we shop, what we buy, what interests us, they can begin to predict our daily habits, and increasingly we are relinquishing our decision making to algorithms - are we giving up this up too easily?
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A good reality check for "Cambridge Hyperbolitica"
- By Haggai Elkayam on 08-06-18
By: David Sumpter
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Everything All at Once
- How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem
- By: Bill Nye
- Narrated by: Bill Nye
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Everything All at Once is an exciting, inspiring call to unleash the power of the nerd mindset that exists within us all. Nye believes we'll never be able to tackle our society's biggest, most complex problems if we don't even know how to solve the small ones. Step by step, he shows his listeners the key tools behind his everything-all-at-once approach: radical curiosity, a deep desire for a better future, and a willingness to take the actions needed to make it a reality.
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Bill Nye is awesome, but skip this one
- By Evan on 08-15-17
By: Bill Nye
What listeners say about Pluses and Minuses
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- George Corser
- 01-04-23
math for poets
narrator terrific. content just, meh, too obvious for someone with stem degree. basically a book about math that does not contain any actual math. better books: men of mathematics and elements of mathematics. (not sure if those have audible versions.)
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