★★★★☆ Math with bad drawings and jokes

Math with Bad Drawings

Ben Orlin

Ben Orlin is a very funny guy. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Pop quiz! What is the basic activity of Wall Street banks?

A. Powering the world economy via the intelligent allocation of capital B. Buying Italian suits with blood money snatched from the pockets of the working class C. Pricing things

If you answered A, then you work for Wall Street. (Hey, nice suit! Is that Italian?) If you answered B, then I’m honored that you’re reading my book, Senator Sanders.

Here's another one, with a point:

You can tell your dinner guests that the “average human” has one ovary and one testicle, but will this not bring conversation to an awkward standstill? (I’ve tried; it does.)

That joke is not just funny. (Well, it made me laugh, especially the final parenthetical comment -- as a scientist I always appreciate the person who's willing to Do The Experiment.) It also illustrates what's wrong with averages -- the average does not exist.

In his Introduction, Orlin struggles to explain why people don't see the beauty and pervasiveness of mathematics. These words put my back up, 'If this description rings false to you, it’s perhaps because you’ve been to a place called “school.” If so, you have my condolences.' I come from a family of teachers and have been one myself -- I was not overjoyed to see Orlin bash schools. But as I read on I realized that he was talking about himself. He teaches math, and he has struggled to do it effectively and to help his students understand why they should want to learn math.

Here he sets out to show why math is worth studying. He does this mostly with examples. The result, for person who makes jokes about his dinner guests' nads, is surprisingly deep and subtle.

The Introduction is followed by 24 chapters of applications. To me they were convincing. Now, to be clear, when Orlin seeks to illustrate applications of math, he doesn't do it by telling you how it'll put food in your belly or money in your pocket. No, Orlin provides deep explanations of the way the world is. That means the physical world, the biological, human and social worlds, and the world of ideas. You come away with a deeper understanding of all these areas.

If I have one criticism, it is that the emphasis on probability and statistics was too heavy. I am one of the few people I know (well, perhaps the one person I know) who actually finds statistics interesting. If it's too much for me, then yeah, it's probably too much. It is fairly clear to me why he does this -- he wants something the people can relate to in their daily lives, and of course we all see stats used and abused every day.

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