The Math of Life and Death: 7 Mathematical Principles That Shape Our Lives

by Kit Yates

Overview

A brilliant and entertaining mathematician illuminates seven mathematical principles that shape our lives.

“Kit Yates shows how our private and social lives are suffused by mathematics. Ignorance may bring tragedy or farce. This is an exquisitely interesting book. It’s a deeply serious one too and, for those like me who have little math, it’s delightfully readable.” —Ian McEwan, author of Atonement

“Kit Yates is a natural storyteller. Through fascinating stories and examples, he shows how maths is the beating heart of so much of modern life. An exciting new voice in the world of science communication.” —Marcus du Sautoy, author of The Music of the Primes

From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures hurled at us as we go about our days can sometimes leave us scratching our heads and feeling as if we’re fumbling through a mathematical minefield. In this eye-opening and extraordinarily accessible book, mathemati­cian Kit Yates illuminates hidden principles that can help us understand and navigate the chaotic and often opaque surfaces of our world.

In The Math of Life and Death, Yates takes us on a fascinating tour of everyday situations and grand-scale applications of mathematical concepts, including exponential growth and decay, optimization, statistics and probability, and number systems. Along the way he reveals the mathematical undersides of controversies over DNA testing, medical screening results, and historical events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Amanda Knox trial. Readers will finish this book with an enlightened perspective on the news, the law, medicine, and history, and will be better equipped to make personal decisions and solve problems with math in mind, whether it’s choosing the shortest checkout line at the grocery store or halting the spread of a deadly disease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982111878
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	162,682
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kit Yates is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and codirector of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath. He completed his PhD in mathematics at the University of Oxford in 2011. His research into mathematical biology has been covered by the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail (London), RTE, Scientific American, and Reuters amongst others. The Math of Life and Death is his first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction Almost Everything 1

Chapter 1 Thinking Exponentially: The Sobering Limits of Power 9

Chapter 2 Sensitivity, Specificity, and Second Opinions: How Math Makes Medicine Manageable 39

Chapter 3 The Laws of Mathematics: Investigating the Role of Mathematics in the Law 75

Chapter 4 Don't Believe the Truth: Debunking Media Statistics 109

Chapter 5 Wrong Place, Wrong Time: When Our Number Systems Let Us Down 145

Chapter 6 Relentless Optimization: From Evolution to E-commerce, Life Is an Algorithm 175

Chapter 7 Susceptible, Infective, Removed: How to Stop an Epidemic 209

Epilogue Mathematical Emancipation 243

Acknowledgments 247

References 251

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

10/21/2019

Ponzi schemes, nuclear fission, and viral marketing are just a few of the topics covered in this savvy book from first-time author Yates, a senior mathematics lecturer at the University of Bath. Exposing the “shaky mathematics” behind the Body Mass Index and health-related diagnostic tools, Yates also offers skepticism of home DNA testing kits and the risk calculations offered by genome-testing companies. Yates considers how calculation errors and “pseudomathematical arguments” have led to wrongful convictions, including of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, condemned to life imprisonment in 1894 after an expert witness’s “abstruse mathematical analysis” linked him to a handwritten message offering French military secrets to the Germans. (Over a decade later, the famous mathematician Henri Poincaré pointed out a basic problem with the witness’s math, and Dreyfus was exonerated.) With fervor, Yates exposes the misuse of statistics and use of “mathematical misdirections” in patient-advice publications and scientific literature. Readers with backgrounds in math should particularly enjoy the heavier chapters, covering topics such as optimization and the seven Millennium Prize Problems, “considered to be the most important unresolved problems in mathematics.” However, any inquisitive and open-minded reader can enjoy this valuable primer on the use and abuse of numbers in the everyday world. Agent: Jason Bartholomew, Hodder. (U.K.) (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

2019-09-29
A welcome addition to the math-for-people-who-hate-math genre.

In his first book, Yates, the co-director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath, cheerfully promises to arm readers "with simple mathematical rules and tools that can help you in your everyday life: from getting the best seat on the train, to keeping your head when you get an unexpected test result from the doctor….We will also…observe math in action as we highlight the steps we can take to help halt the spread of a deadly disease." Evolution primed organisms to avoid danger; calculating has no survival advantage, so humans lack a talent for it, a deficit the author finds irresistible. Yates also looks at the mammogram anecdote, which serves as proof that even smart people mess up: A woman has a positive mammogram. If mammograms are 90% accurate and 1% of women have undetected breast cancer, what are the odds that this is bad news? Given a choice, many doctors will say 80% when the answer is about 9. They forget that 10% of the 99 healthy women will also test positive. Yates also points out the common mathematical errors that occur in the court system, where many fall for the "prosecutor's fallacy." For example, an accused person wears the identical shoe size as the criminal. Since only 4% of the population wears that size, the prosecutor claims that there is a 96% chance that he is guilty. Along with useful tips and intriguing examinations of a wide variety of algorithms (useful and useless), Yates loves delivering curious facts, in the vein of Freakonomics, and readers will be thankful. For example, almost every human possesses more than the average number of legs. Amputees lower the average, and no one has three.

All but the stubbornly innumerate will enjoy this amusing mathematical miscellany.

Kirkus Reviews

A dizzying, dazzling debut.” —Nature

“A welcome addition to the math-for-people-who-hate-math genre...All but the stubbornly innumerate will enjoy this amusing mathematical miscellany.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Ponzi schemes, nuclear fission, and viral marketing are just a few of the topics covered in this savvy book from first-time author Yates...Any inquisitive and open-minded reader can enjoy this valuable primer on the use and abuse of numbers in the everyday world.” —Publishers Weekly

“Kit Yates is a brilliant explainer and storyteller. Perhaps most charming of all, his stories are a bit like Sherlock Holmes tales: mysteries whose solutions seem surprising and then elementary, once the clever reasoning behind them is revealed. I loved this book and learned something on every page.”
—Steven Strogatz, professor of mathematics, Cornell University, and author of Infinite Powers and The Joy of X

“Kit Yates shows how our private and social lives are suffused by mathematics. Ignorance may bring tragedy or farce. This is an exquisitely interesting book. It’s a deeply serious one too and, for those like me who have little math, it’s delightfully readable.”
—Ian McEwan, author of Atonement

“Kit Yates is a natural storyteller. Through fascinating stories and examples, he shows how math is the beating heart of so much of modern life. An exciting new voice in the world of science communication.”
—Marcus du Sautoy, author of The Music of the Primes

“Used wisely, mathematics can save your life. Used unwisely, it can ruin it. A lucid and enthralling account of why math matters in everyone’s life. A real eye-opener.”
—Ian Stewart, author of In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World

“This crisp, clear and compelling book is about the liminal spaces between expertise in mathematics and hardline decision-making, taking you on a powerful journey about truth and belief and what math actually is, out in the wild.” —Times Education Supplement (UK)

“Many people assume that the closest math gets to their daily lives is when it’s time to calculate the tip at a restaurant or the discount being offered at a store. But mathematician Yates shows that everyone—even the most math-phobic among us—interacts with math much more often and deeply than we realize.” —Scientific American

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