魔鬼数学 – How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg

如果你是一个有“数学焦虑症”的人，你可能不会相信有一天你会爱上数学。原因在于，我们在学校所学的数学知识看上去不过是一堆沉闷的规则、定律和公理，都是前人传下来的，而且是不容置疑的。在本书中，世界知名数学家乔丹·艾伦伯格告诉我们这样的认识是错误的。数学与我们所做的每一件事都息息相关，可以帮助我们洞见在混沌和嘈杂的表象之下日常生活的隐性结构和秩序。数学是一门告诉我们“如何做才不会犯错”的科学，是经年累月的努力、争论所锤炼出来的。

你应该提前多长时间到达机场？民意调查的结果真的能代表人们的意愿吗？为什么父母都是高个子，孩子的身高却比较矮？用什么策略买彩票才能中大奖？本书运用数学方法分析和解决了很多的日常生活问题，帮助数学门外汉习得用数学思维思考问题的技能。

作者用数学这条主线穿起了时空，从每时每刻到宇宙空间，中间还穿插了很多人和事物，比如棒球、里根经济学、伏尔泰、意大利文艺复兴时期的绘画、人造语言等。本书带领我们踏上了一段精彩绝伦的数学思维之旅，旅行过后，相信你可以成为一个更棒的思考者。作者从历史及最近的理论发展中汲取精华，向我们展示了数学知识的魅力和力量。数学可以让我们更好地思考：它可以磨练我们的直觉，让我们的判断更敏锐，它还可以驯服不确定性，让我们更深入地了解世界的结构和逻辑。

拥有了数学工具，我们就可以把那些我们想当然的事情看得更透彻，从而做出正确的决策。

The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands

The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it.

Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer?

How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God.

Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

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