Ok first off, my copy is titled ‘The Maths of Life and Death’, now technically as an Australian who speaks the kings English I should be pronouncing it ‘maths’ but you know what? ‘Math’ sounds better and also makes more sense etymologically, so I’m going to defensively stick to math.

Now to the book, it’s a series of standalone articles about how math (and numbers more broadly) influences real world events. This is anything from evidence in court, algorithms optimising your feed, news agents reporting “facts”, and a whole heap more.

Each article includes a fairly easy to read explanation of the different number principles being discussing (whether it’s statistics, probabilities, or even the concept of numbers themselves), so it’s a nice primer to understand the concepts and see how it applies to reality. Plus because it’s articles, it’s very easy to put down and pick up again when the mood strikes for some more math.