Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

基本信息

Paperback: 256 pages

Publisher: Penguin (March 5, 2020)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0141989149

ISBN-13: 978-0141989143

Product Dimensions: 198 x 19 x 129 mm

Weight: 248g

页面参数仅供参考，具体以实物为准

书籍简介

第一本成为畅销书的数学书

“很棒……j佳”——每日邮报

Matt Parker晒出Humble Pi的榜单(精装版)

作者 Matt Parker 本身是数学老师之外，他还十分擅长栋笃笑。他写的“数学书”既具有知识性又具有娱乐性，易读性很高。即使是对理科兴趣不高的人，也能从中找到笑点。

通过很多小案例告诉读者“不懂数学的下场”。如果我们当年的数学课能有这么生动有趣，或许我们现在就不会那么讨厌数学了。

是什么让一座本不应该摇晃的桥摇晃起来?数十亿美元神秘地消失在空气中？一块建筑用的石头，当它的共振频率与健身课的频率相匹配时，就会跳到Snap 1990年的热门歌曲《我有力量了》(I've Got The Power) ？答案是数学。或者，更准确地说，当数学在现实世界中出错时，会发生什么。

数学在各个层面影响我们生活。正如马特·帕克(Matt Parker)向我们展示的那样，我们的现代生活是建立在数学基础上的:计算机程序、金融、工程、天气。大多数时候，这种数学运算都是在幕后悄悄进行的，直到……它不够准确。马特·帕克(Matt Parker)探索并解释了一长串与互联网、大数据、选举、路牌、彩票、罗马帝国(the Roman empire)和一支倒霉的奥运射击队有关的故障、失误和灾难，他向我们展示了数学各种各样的数学引发的一系列故障，揭示了数学在世界上的重要地位。

他认为，数学并没有很好的“人际交往能力”，但如果我们把数学看作是一个实际的盟友，我们都会过得更好。这本书告诉我们，通过与数学为友，我们可以从数学的陷阱中学习。它还包含谜题、挑战、几何袜、有关二进制代码的笑话和三个故意的错误。犯错从来没有这么有趣。

另外他也是活跃的油管博主。如果你有关注他的视频，那么书中的很多案例对你而言就不会感到陌生。

Matt Parker发布的每条视频观看量都不少。通过大家能亲身接触的日常生活例子，用简单的语言传播复杂的数学知识。

**The First Ever Maths Book to be a No.① Bestseller**

'Wonderful ... superb' Daily Mail

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.

媒体推荐

Matt Parker has pulled off something wonderful . . . his stories are superb.

Marcus Berkmann, The Daily Mail

Parker is consistently very funny . . . highly entertaining.

The Guardian

Numbers to die for. Four stars.

Simon Griffith, Mail on Sunday

Bought it yesterday, enjoying it enormously, well done!

Very funny. . . a compendium of stories about mathematical failures; some are amusing, others alarming, as in the case of the passenger aircraft that ran out of fuel because it had been measured in the wrong units

Telegraph Books of the Year

The surprise bestseller that makes maths fun

Sunday Times Magazine

Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations - that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes

Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything

作者简介

Matt Parker专门拍了条视频，介绍Humble Pi。他故意留下两个和数学相关的错误的地方。其中，他在视频里说头上飞过的飞机是波音787，但实际是A380。而另一处错误则留给大家寻找。

马特·帕克（Matt Parker），他是伦敦玛丽皇后大学的研究员，更是一位著名的科学传播者。马特也是知名的数学频道Numberphile的主持人之一，很擅长用简单的语言向公众传播复杂数学知识，以及一本正经地讲数学冷笑话。

Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt Parker now lives in Godalming in a house full of almost every retro video-game console ever made. He is fluent in binary and could write your name in a sequence of noughts and ones in seconds. He loves doing maths and stand-up, often simultaneously. When he's not working as the Public Engagement in Mathematics Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, he's performing in sold-out live comedy shows, spreading his love of maths via TV and radio, or converting photographs into Excel spreadsheets. He is the author of Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.