“Can mathematics help you win at Powerball? Improve your chances of finding a handsome man to date who’s not a jerk? How about prove the existence of God? While we’re at it, might the promise of such provocative explorations lure you into picking up a treatise on perhaps your least favorite subject?” writes Manil Suri in the opening paragraph of his Washington Post Book Review.
The book in question is, “How Not to Be Wrong,” by Jordan Ellenberg.
“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,” writes Suri.
Books by Manil Suri
