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

by John Allen Paulos

Overview

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 reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633881181
Publisher:	Prometheus Books
Publication date:	11/10/2015
Pages:	206
Sales rank:	1,096,104
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John Allen Paulos is a professor of mathematics at Temple University and the author of eight previous books, including the best-selling Innumeracy and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper.

Editorial Reviews

09/07/2015
In this fluid and varied memoir, Paulos (A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper), a professor of mathematics at Temple University, calls into question the accuracy of the stories people craft about others’ lives and their own. From a mathematical standpoint, he tackles subjects such as the deceptiveness of the concept of normal, the nuances that exist within one’s sense of self, and the inevitability of encountering coincidences. Delving into psychology, philosophy, statistics, and logic, Paulos reveals the far-reaching applications of mathematical thought in people’s lives as well as how they record and remember past events. Rather than adopting the pointed structure of a persuasive essay, Paulos chases down tangents and relates his own experiences, with nostalgia. The organic structure, shaped and strengthened by mathematics, paradoxically makes for a smooth yet convoluted read. Paulos skillfully mixes biography with an analysis of the accuracy (or rather inaccuracy) of biographies as a whole without sabotaging or contradicting either standpoint. By calling its own form into question, Paulos’s memoir offers an honest look into the author’s life and mind, going beyond the specifics of the math to ponder larger questions of how people perceive themselves and their lives. Agent: Raphael Sagalyn, ICM Sagalyn Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

""There’s nothing more enlightening than a view of life’s nuances as seen through the lens of a mathematician.  Especially when that mathematician is John Allen Paulos, a brilliant educator who persistently empowers the reader to think in ways that render transparent much of what is opaque in the world around us.” ?NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History “A Numerate Life is the engaging history of a mathematical mind. As always, John Paulos displays his genius for making the abstract and abstruse entirely intuitive.”   —SYLVIA NASAR, author of A Beautiful Mind   “A quirky and surprisingly poignant book about the struggle to make sense of one’s own life story. With the help of logic and statistical reasoning, Paulos shines a light on the paradoxes and delusions that so often bedevil our remembrance of things past. Where Proust had his madeleine, Paulos has math.”   —STEVEN STROGATZ, professor of mathematics, Cornell University, and author of The Joy of X   “American editor Ellery Sedgwick wrote once that ‘autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter Two.’ I believe that had he read A Numerate Life, he would have agreed that Chapter One is no less fascinating than any other chapter in this wonderful book. Paulos’s life is a rich tapestry embroidered with mathematical gems.”   —MARIO LIVIO, astrophysicist, author of Brilliant Blunders and The Golden Ratio   “In this gripping page-turner, John Allen Paulos surprises us once again, with a ‘memoir’ like no other memoir. He may not have made, as he claims, any ‘seminal contributions’ to mathematics, but his impact on ‘meta-mathematics,’ and the interface of math with the real world, far surpasses that of any single living mathematician. You will never be able to read biographies the same way again, since this is not yet-another-memoir, but a thought-provoking, path-breaking, ‘meta-memoir’ and even ‘anti-memoir.’”   —DORON ZEILBERGER, Board of Governors professor of Mathematics, Rutgers University, and winner of the Leroy P. Steele Prize and the Euler Medal in Mathematics

From the Publisher

11/15/2015
Paulos (mathematics, Temple Univ.) is known for writing mathematical takes on seemingly nonmathematical aspects of life such as humor, religion, and the stock market. Here the author turns that view to (broadly defined) biography: the stories we tell about people, including ourselves. Part memoir, part deconstruction of the genre, and part mathematical musing on how we perceive ourselves and present that self to others, this book—like his others—is prone to wandering and tangents, none of which sustains any depth of insight. Paulos can also come off as superior or self-congratulatory. The author frames himself as an ambassador for mathematics, but it's hard to believe he draws people in with his judgmental tone. With more focus, this book could have delivered social insight along the lines of Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's Freakonomics; instead it's a too-clever collection of mathematical tricks, uncharitable takes on others' decisions, and sketches from Paulos's life as a precocious child and self-satisfied young adult. VERDICT Fans of Paulos will enjoy spending more time with him, but the author won't win over new readers with this title.—Gretchen Kolderup, New York P.L.

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