让鸽子开公交车 – What’s the Use by Ian Stewart

许多人认为数学离我们很远，除了买菜根本用不着。但他们错了。在英国，280万数学科学从业者一年就为经济贡献了2080亿英镑——也就是说，10%的劳动力贡献了16%的经济产值。

为什么公众对数学的认识与现实之间存在如此巨大的鸿沟？作者在书中探讨了这个问题，并从政治、医疗、气候、出行、娱乐、信息安全、智能生活等多个角度切入，展示了在日常生活的背后，数学如何以令人惊讶的方式发挥着至关重要的作用。

See the world in a completely new way as an esteemed mathematician shows how math powers the world – from technology to health care and beyond.

Almost all of us have sat in a math class, wondering when we’d ever need to know how to find the roots of a polynomial or graph imaginary numbers. And in one sense, we were right: If we needed to, we’d use a computer. But as Ian Stewart argues in What’s the Use?, math isn’t just about boring computations. Rather, it offers us new and profound insights into our world, allowing us to accomplish feats as significant as space exploration and organ donation. From the trigonometry that keeps a satellite in orbit to the prime numbers used by the world’s most advanced security systems to the imaginary numbers that enable augmented reality, math isn’t just relevant to our lives. It is the very fabric of our existence.

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