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Humble Pi
- A Comedy of Maths Errors
- Narrated by: Matt Parker
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
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Humble Pi
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Summary
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.
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)
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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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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- 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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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- 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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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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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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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Tore
- 20-03-19
Errors within a book about errors
Very interesting book, but I have to say that I found two errors within the book
1) The author seems to find that there is some errors when it comes to the physical measurements of some non-described part of a certain US President whose name is a rule in the game of Bridge (I suspect that the author suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome)
2) The author doesn't seem to be able to understand memes... (another reason to suspect Trump Derangement Syndrome). The author attribute a certain million dollar meme about ObamaCare to an unnamed and quite frankly unknown person on "the right side of the political spectrum" without actually asking any questions about the actual origin of the meme. Based on the meme there is no way to say anything about the political persuasion of the person seemingly quoted in the meme.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Noemie
- 30-08-19
Funny
I loved this, I'm rubbish at maths, but never once was i made to feel stupid. It was laugh out loud funny, interesting and engaging, the fact he narrated it himself i feel helps as it flows better with his knowledge and appropriate emphasis. A really interesting and educational listen, I would highly recommend it, if give it more stars of i could.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- t.g.warner
- 20-06-21
Second time around
Read this for the second time. I really enjoyed it this time around. Its witty in places and the narration was clear. All in all, I loved it.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Roman Novosad
- 29-03-20
Best if tou are new to this content
If you watch Matt's and Tom Scott's videos on youtube you have probably heard most of these stories.
On the other hand, even the repeated stories don't become any less funny!
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