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Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

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As Matt Parker shows us, our modern lives are built on maths: computer programmes, finance, engineering. The area looks as safe as safe can be … until you check the LAPD’s online map of reported crime locations.

Also, it's numbered backwards, which made it tricky to track my process through it here, since Goodreads won't let you update to Page 141 when you started on Page 316. There's also a trick to the index that I didn't figure out (but the index is worth reading for itself, as well). It is my uninformed impression that in some industries, such as medicine and finance, which do tend to blame the individual, ignoring the whole system can lead to a culture of not admitting mistakes when they happen. If the computer is unable to work out the location, it simply logs the default location for Los Angeles: the front doorstep of the LAPD headquarters. To avoid being deleted as unwanted test data, when Brian Test started a new job, he brought in a cake for all his new colleagues to enjoy.Sometimes the punchline will come and then he will explain that the punchline was actually only one of the things that needed to go wrong for the whole thing to come crashing down.

I mean, that is still a thing; a friend of mine manages a brewery and does exactly that for a living. I would have gone with something more like ‘distracted fingers’ or ‘should learn to double-check all important data entry but is probably now fired anyway fingers’. Most real-world salami-slicing scams seem to use amounts greater than fractions of a penny but still operate below the threshold where people will notice and complain.

Knew I was going to love this book when I opened it and immediately saw the page numbers going the wrong way. I was thinking some of my maths teacher friends might enjoy it and find it useful for illustrations in class.

The book is never overly technical--just enough mathematics or engineering background is introduced, to allow an understanding of each episode in the book. A little larger or heavier construct suddenly passes a limit where previously minor problems become major ones or add up in odd ways.

bestseller," stand-up mathematician Matt Parker unveils the hilarious results of maths going wrong in the real world.

También se me ha escapado parte de su contenido “humorístico”, pero creo que es achacable a que el autor y yo hablamos distintos idiomas (tanto literarios como mentales). In reality, the jump to a trillion is much bigger: the difference between living to your early thirties and a time when humankind may no longer exist. For the average folk, we never fully manage to put a finger on the utility of an integral or the need to prove that an isosceles triangle has two same sides (can’t I just believe it, 8th grade Geometry teacher!

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? In 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was nicknamed Galloping Gertie and it collapsed four months after being built. After the official investigation had ruled out an earthquake, they found the culprit was an exercise class on the twelfth floor. I don’t go for popular science of this type, anecdotal though informed, commentary on technical mistakes.

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