How not to be wrong. The power of mathematical thinking
How not to be wrong. The power of mathematical thinking
by Unknown author · first published 2014
17mentions
11recommended by
16HN commenters
2014–2023first – last mentioned
69% recommend31% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible tour of mathematical reasoning applied to everyday claims, with vivid examples on statistics, prediction scams and misread data; recommended to general readers wanting to think more clearly about numbers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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There are quite a few popular books on this topic, e.g. How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking : https://smile.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Wrong-Mathematical/dp/01...
on “Ask HN: How to apply Mathematics in life?” ↗This reminds me of one of the chapters from "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" by Jordan Ellenberg (highly recommended). He describes how "stock brokers" would send out a "free stock prediction" to thousands of email addresses. The prediction would be a simple up/down prediction…
on “A.I. accurately predicted the full baseball post-season back in July” ↗I just finsihed "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" by Jordan Ellenberg. It's an amazing book. Now I'm looking for a book to read next. I was thinking about "The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't" by Nate Silver. Any better…
on “Ask HN: Good book about statistics and probability?” ↗A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) by Barbara Oakley How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg I'm not sure but I heard Little Brother by Cory Doctorow covers ideas of privacy and information security? I haven't read it myself yet but I heard great things about Gödel, Escher,…
on “Ask HN: Book Recommendations for Teenagers” ↗There's a nice explanation of the game and the exploitation in the book How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.
on “A game of chance became anything but (2011)” ↗This story (and the math behind it) is discussed at length in "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" by Jordan Ellenberg. I highly recommend it, the other stories in it are equally enlightening.
on “How MIT Students Won $8M in the Massachusetts Lottery (2012)” ↗How Google Works - Gives interesting insights in the healthy values at Google. How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking - Interesting discussions about correct/incorrect interpretations of data/statistics. Black Hat Python - Gives short code examples of what can be possible to do. Programming Collective Intelligence…
on “Ask HN: What are the best books that changed your life in 2015?” ↗The book How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking[1] by Jordan Ellenberg has a segment on this with similar examples (minus the programming bits), tying it in to human psychology and, with surprising insight, the behavior of slime molds. Would definitely…
on “Rigging elections with integer linear programming” ↗The top 4 this year for me: How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗My first exposure to this idea was in Jordan Ellenberg's fantastic book "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking". Here's a post from him that goes into the same example he uses in the book: https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/06/berksons-fallacy-wh...
on “Berkson's Paradox” ↗This kind of thinking is also explored deeply in Jordan Ellenberg's book "How Not to be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking". Great read.
on “You need 27 tickets to guarantee a win on the UK National Lottery” ↗…Dale Carnegie 11. Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian 12. Tribe by Sebastian Junger 13. Sapiens A Brief History of Humanity by Yuval Noah Harari 14. This is Water by David Foster Wallace 15. How Not to Be Wrong. The Power of Mathematical Thinking by Jordan Ellenberg 16. Walt Disney By Neal Gabler 17. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley 18. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger 19. The Richest Man in Babylon…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2016?” ↗In the book How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking Paperback, Jordan Ellenberg discusses this as an example of a poorly-designed lottery where people with enough mathematical sophistication and enough financial resources could game the system: https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Wrong-Mathematical/dp/0143...
on “Voltaire's Luck: The French Philosopher Outsmarts the Lottery” ↗I've just started reading How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking by him. I enjoy these synchronicities.
on “Mathematicians becoming data scientists” ↗…progress. I'll read a chapter from whichever one I'm in the mood for when I have some time for reading. Currently in progress: "A Book of Abstract Algebra: Second Edition" by Charles C. Pinter [1]. "How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking" by Jordan Ellenberg [2]. "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond [3]. "Introduction to Analytic Number Theory" by Tom M. Apostol [4]. "Algorithmic Puzzles" by Levitin…
on “Ask HN: What books are you currently reading?” ↗