Pluses and Minuses : How Maths Solves Our Problems - Stefan Buijsman

Pluses and Minuses

How Maths Solves Our Problems

By: Stefan Buijsman

Paperback | 21 July 2020

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $32.99

$30.25

or 4 interest-free payments of $7.56 with

 or 

Aims to ship in 5 to 10 business days

A book about who and what counts in life, mathematic and philosophically.

You look up from your phone for a moment to order an espresso. It's made with one of those large stainless-steel coffee makers that heats the water until it's precisely the right temperature. It keeps track of how fast the water warms up and uses that to calculate whether it needs to apply more or less heat, until the perfect temperature is attained. You're not aware of any of it, but right in front of your nose those formulae that your maths teacher talked about are being used to make your cup of coffee.

Thousands of years ago, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia became the first humans to use numbers. Since then, mathematics has become an unstoppable force. It's behind almost everything, from search engines to cruise control, from coffee-makers to timetables. But now that we hardly ever need to do arithmetic, how relevant is mathematics to everyday life?

Drawing on examples within the interconnected fields of philosophy, psychology and history, Dr Stefan Buijsman explores the role mathematics plays in the modern world.
Industry Reviews
'From Netflix's Numbers to the Maths of Manhattan, Buijsman's book gets one big plus from me!' * Adam Spencer *

More in Popular Science

Behave : The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst - Robert M Sapolsky
Swainston's Fishes of Australia : The complete illustrated guide - Roger Swainston
Lifespan : Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To - David Sinclair
Being Mortal : Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End - Atul Gawande
Sapiens : A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

RRP $27.99

$26.50

Love Triangle : The Life-changing Magic of Trigonometry - Matt Parker
Wise Animals : How Technology Has Made Us What We Are - Tom Chatfield
Thing Explainer : Complicated Stuff in Simple Words - Randall Munroe
The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

RRP $14.00

$9.50

32%
OFF