The Math of Life and Death, Kit Yates
The Math of Life and Death, Kit Yates
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The Math of Life and Death

Author: Kit Yates

Narrator: Kit Yates

Unabridged: 8 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/07/2020

Synopsis

Brilliant and entertaining mathematician Kit Yates illuminates seven mathematical concepts that shape our daily lives.

From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures we encounter as we go about our days can leave us scratching our heads, feeling as if we’re fumbling through a mathematical minefield. In this eye-opening and “welcome addition to the math-for-people-who-hate-math” (Kirkus Reviews), Kit Yates illuminates hidden principles that can help us understand and navigate the chaotic and often opaque surfaces of our world.

In The Math of Life and Death, Yates takes us on a “dizzying, dazzling” (Nature) tour of everyday situations and grand-scale applications of mathematical concepts, including exponential growth and decay, optimization, statistics and probability, and number systems. Along the way he reveals the mathematical undersides of controversies over DNA testing, Ponzi schemes, viral marketing, and historical events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Amanda Knox trial. Readers will finish this book with an enlightened perspective on the news, the law, medicine, and history, and will be better equipped to make personal decisions and solve problems with math in mind, whether it’s choosing the shortest checkout line at the grocery store or halting the spread of a deadly disease.

About Kit Yates

Kit Yates is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and codirector of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath. He completed his PhD in mathematics at the University of Oxford in 2011. His research into mathematical biology has been covered by the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, the Daily Mail (London), RTE, Scientific American, and Reuters amongst others. The Math of Life and Death is his first book.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David

My problem with books on mathematics is never remembering the formulas, even from one chapter to the next. OK, and being bored with them is a factor too. Kit Yates solved these problems by not using any formulas, or even much math in his delightful (when not frightening) The Math of Life and Death.......more

Goodreads review by kartik

This is a fantastic book on Mathematics but is a little bit more advanced for novices. It covers a lot of topics all of which amaze one when the maths behind them is revealed. Of particular interest is the last chapter which deals with the modeling of pandemics (this book was written before covid-19......more

Goodreads review by Veronika

Nepodceňujte dôležitosť matematiky, aby sa vám potom nestalo ako sa stalo minule mne, keď idúcky z vlaku nepozerala som sa pod nohy, bohorovne presvedčená, že presunom z miesta bydliska A, kde rastie v priemere asi tak tisíc stromov na jedného obyvateľa do miesta bydliska B, kde rastie v priemere as......more

Goodreads review by Yunke

I was never very good at math growing up in China where I never fully understood why I needed to do the proof of equations in math classes. Now as a professional, I am doing a job which forces me to work in math a lot. Slowly seeing the magic of math everywhere from pharmaceutical to industrial prod......more

Goodreads review by Thomas

In many respects this is quite an odd book, I suppose the title could be misleading, perhaps sell the book as a listicle type of thing... Instead the Maths of Life and Death is effectively 7(at least) lessons in maths which are essentially useful to know. The book isn't needlessly dense, nor too supe......more

Quotes

"Yates, a mathematical biologist from the University of Bath, England, can spin a funny yarn. Listeners will smile as he tells how he turned up early at an airport once because he mixed up A.M. and P.M. His stories tend to have a serious side, though. His airport mix-up leads into explaining how time zone confusion thwarted the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Yates looks at the math relating to a lot of serious topics, such as radiation, police shootings and mass shootings, pyramid schemes, and smallpox vaccines. He keeps the topics lively and interesting. . . . Yates also offers listeners much needed ways to look skeptically at courtroom statements, statistics, and social media."

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