Guesstimation
Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
by John A. Adam · first published 2008
89% recommend11% neutral
Unlocks the power of approximation-- popular mathematics rounded to the nearest power of ten. The ability to estimate is an important skill in daily life.
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There's this book I like called "Guesstimations in the back of a napkin" or something This? https://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-Solving-Worlds-Problems...
on “Open-sourcing Riskquant, a library for quantifying risk” ↗Thanks for the suggestion. will definitely give it a try. I really liked guesstimation too. https://www.amazon.in/Guesstimation-Solving-World%60s-Proble...
on “Ask HN: Sources to learn powerful everyday useful mathematical concepts” ↗I'm not very fond of Taleb, but well -- anything by Taleb. Exercise books for Fermi estimates like Guesstimation, etc. Further out, something in systems thinking, maybe Donella Meadows' "Thinking in systems". Further further out, maybe those Stafford Beer papers about the Viable Systems Model? At one point Beer…
on “Open-sourcing Riskquant, a library for quantifying risk” ↗…emergence in self-organized systems. Great, coordinated actions follow from simple, local rules or behavior or action. I fully understand wasted effort, like paper vs. plastic bags (as so aptly argued in Guesstimation book), when you consume more gas driving to the supermarket, and if you cut down on frequency of trips you offset the non-issue of plastic vs. paper. I do believe in both individual and societal action,…
on “Kids Win the Right to Sue the US Government Over Climate Change” ↗Recommend Guesstimation by Weinstein and Adams as the first topic to master. Getting comfortable with numbers and their sizes will make everything else easier. Also, getting in the habit of doing rough explorations is an essential…
on “Ask HN: How to self-learn math?” ↗A few ideas: * Guesstimation:Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin. Math is a tool. Start using it with some simple arithmetic and scientific notation. Once it becomes something you can use and play in that…
on “Mathematics for the Adventurous Self-Learner” ↗…John & Barbara Hubbard is a beautiful introduction to the multi-dimensional aspects, but it is a book that should happen after knowing one dimensional calculus. . If your child hasn't been exposed to Guesstimation, then a book on that is highly recommended. The book with that title by Weinstein and Adams is a nice guide to investigating that realm. If the child does arithmetic from right to left, as is sadly too…
on “Ask HN: Recommend a maths book for a teenager?” ↗The book Guesstimation leads to a good very rough approximation mindset, both in terms of how one computes as well as understanding the innate roughness of an answer to a question. They may already be comfortable with that…
on “Programming, Math, Science: A list with links to useful resources” ↗I recommend making sure you are good with Guesstimation to start (The book of that name by Weinstein and Adams). Be sure to create your own questions and attempt to answer them. Watch some TED talks and try to use mathematical skepticism to criticize them.…
on “Ask HN: I suck at math, where to start?” ↗…usually point folks to on the subject of estimating physical systems. I think this is a real gem. Another work of the author is referenced at the bottom of the article. I'll also vouch for the referenced Guesstimation (though I hate the title). https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-6-011-the-art-of-insight-in-...
on “Hacking physics from the back of a napkin (2020)” ↗There is also Guesstimation 2.0 by the same authors which is a sequel to Guesstimation and is just as good. Also see Maths on the Back of an Envelope: Clever ways to (roughly) calculate anything. by Rob Eastaway - https://aperiodical.com/2019/11/review-maths-on-the-back-of-...…
on “Hacking physics from the back of a napkin (2020)” ↗You can actually estimate this pretty well with only your brain and basic math. Example 1 in Guesstimation by Lawrence Weinstein and John Adams, would work for this problem. The problem is about estimating the height of all lottery tickets in a lottery. Another book called The art of Insight in Science and…
on “The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million” ↗Guesstimation is also a good read
on “Street-Fighting Mathematics (2008)” ↗…apply to many (most?) other modeling approaches. On a related note, one of the last times I mentioned Hubbard here, another book came up in the surrounding discussion, which looks really good as well. Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin[2] - I bought a copy but haven't had time to read it yet. Maybe somebody who is familiar will chime in with their thoughts? [1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Busi...…
on “What are the most important statistical ideas of the past 50 years? [pdf]” ↗I read http://www.amazon.com/Guesstimation-Solving-Worlds-Problems-... and the attached link delves into far greater theory than the book. Thank you for sharing this with us :-)
on “Art of approximation in science and engineering” ↗