Humble Pi
A Comedy of Maths Errors
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Humble Pi
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Narrated by:
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Matt Parker
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By:
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Matt Parker
About this listen
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Humble Pi written and read by Matt Parker.
What makes a bridge wobble when it's not meant to? Billions of dollars mysteriously vanish into thin air? A building rock when its resonant frequency matches a gym class leaping to Snap's 1990 hit I've Got The Power? The answer is maths. Or, to be precise, what happens when maths goes wrong in the real world.
As Matt Parker shows us, our modern lives are built on maths: computer programmes, finance, engineering. And most of the time this maths works quietly behind the scenes, until...it doesn't. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near-misses and mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman empire and a hapless Olympic shooting team, Matt Parker shows us the bizarre ways maths trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world.
Mathematics doesn't have good 'people skills', but we would all be better off, he argues, if we saw it as a practical ally. This book shows how, by making maths our friend, we can learn from its pitfalls. It also contains puzzles, challenges, geometric socks, jokes about binary code and three deliberate mistakes. Getting it wrong has never been more fun.
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Critic reviews
"Matt Parker has pulled off something wonderful...his stories are superb." (Marcus Berkmann)
"Bought it yesterday, enjoying it enormously, well done!" (Dara Ó Briain)
"[Matt Parker] shows off math at its most playful and multifarious." (Jordan Ellenberg, author of How to Not Be Wrong)
What listeners say about Humble Pi
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Paul
- 23-08-19
Amazing book well done Matt!!!
loved following all the stories about maths mistakes. great book and worth a read if you like technical books
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Gav Barnett
- 06-04-19
Parker Square!
Great book.
Well adapted for audio and read by the author. Excel spreadsheets rule the world.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Comanche
- 11-05-20
Came from YouTube. Loved it from start to finish.
Loved the narration solve by Matt himself. There are some glorious nuggets of verbal translation that would be lost to ask audio listener, and it's refreshing to have an audio book read as a verbal guide, rather than being read word for word verbatim.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mr. M. J. Yeomans
- 24-04-20
Great fun very interesting and amusing
Enjoyable book that was insightful and informative, with lots of fun little facts that helped show some the amazigness and challenges of the modern world and the difficulty humanity faces
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- C. Carey
- 29-06-22
Even if you're not mathsy!
lively and fun, a great trip through the often inaccessible world of maths.
very enjoyable!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-03-23
Fun read.. if a touch nearby
Makes for a fun book if you are inclined to learn a few nerd details..
gonna play a game of packman or space invaders now 😅
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- Benjamin baker
- 04-12-20
Nerdy satisfaction 93% of the time
Only 12% unintelligible to the layman, 60% humour inducing to those within the nerdy front row
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 01-02-22
Unmistakable brilliance!
Fascinating and informative from start to finish. Will definitely be listening to this again in the future, and again, and again, to be reminded of the details of the cases involved so that I can relay them to those that I help with learning mathematics - in the hope that I can get through to them that mistakes happen and we can and should learn from them.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Mr. L. R. Walker
- 19-01-20
Fantastic listen. 3.1415 out of pi stars.
Matt is a most engaging narrator. His well chosen examples highlight both how easily mistakes can happen and how important transparency is so we learn from them
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- Andy
- 14-03-21
Absolutely fantastic!
Absolutely fantastic, as a fan of Mr Parker this book is a great read, thanks Matt.
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