A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours
(eAudiobook)

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Hoopla Extract Information

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    [year] => 2015
    [artist] => John Allen Paulos
    [fiction] => 
    [coverImageUrl] => https://cover.hoopladigital.com/gil_9781469095226_270.jpeg
    [titleId] => 12162172
    [isbn] => 9781469095226
    [abridged] => 
    [language] => ENGLISH
    [profanity] => 
    [title] => A Numerate Life
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    [duration] => 6h 45m 0s
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                    [name] => John Allen Paulos
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    [price] => 2.51
    [id] => 12162172
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    [kind] => AUDIOBOOK
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    [synopsis] => Employing intuitive ideas from mathematics, this quirky "meta-memoir" raises questions about our lives that most of us don't think to ask, but arguably should: What part of memory is reliable fact, what part creative embellishment? Which favorite presuppositions are unfounded, which statistically biased? By conjoining two opposing mindsets--the suspension of disbelief required in storytelling and the skepticism inherent in the scientific method--bestselling mathematician John Allen Paulos has created an unusual hybrid, a composite of personal memories and mathematical approaches to re-evaluating them.

Entertaining vignettes from Paulos's biography abound--ranging from a bullying math teacher and a fabulous collection of baseball cards to romantic crushes, a grandmother's petty larceny, and his quite unintended role in getting George Bush elected president in 2000. These vignettes serve as springboards to many telling perspectives: simple arithmetic puts life-long habits in a dubious new light; higher dimensional geometry helps us see that we're all rather peculiar; nonlinear dynamics explains the narcissism of small differences cascading into very different siblings; logarithms and exponentials yield insight on why we tend to become bored and jaded as we age; and there are tricks and jokes, probability and coincidences, and much more.

For fans of Paulos or newcomers to his work, this witty commentary on his life--and yours--is fascinating listening.
    [url] => https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/12162172
    [pa] => 
    [subtitle] => A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours
    [publisher] => Ascent Audio
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