A Comedy of Maths Errors

Humble Pi

**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.

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

Parker is consistently very funny . . . highly entertaining.

Bought it yesterday, enjoying it enormously, well done!

I just finished the new book by irrepressible maths enthusiast @standupmaths, and it's GREAT!

An entertaining and often alarming journey through the numerical blunders made over the years.

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

The surprise bestseller that makes maths fun

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

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.

What makes a bridge wobble when it's not meant to? How do billions of dollars mysteriously vanish into thin air? How does 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. 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.

Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension

'Maths at its most playful and multifarious' Jordan Ellenberg 
 
Matt Parker, author of the No.1 bestseller Humble Pi, takes us on a riotous journey through the possibilities of numbers 
 
Mathematician Matt Parker uses bizarre Klein Bottles, unimaginably small pizza slices, knots no one can untie and computers built from dominoes to reveal some of the most exotic and fascinating ideas in mathematics. Starting with simple numbers and algebra, this book goes on to deal with inconceivably big numbers in more dimensions than you ever knew existed. And always with something for you to make or do along the way. 
 
'The book oozes with sheer joy' New Scientist 
 
'Matt Parker is some sort of unholy fusion of a prankster, wizard and brilliant nerd - clever, funny and ever so slightly naughty' Adam Rutherford, author of Creation 
 
'Matt Parker never got the memo about maths being boring ... he seeks to reconnect us to the numbers around us' Simon Usborne, Independent 
 
'Essential reading' Observer

An unusual, in-depth but highly accessible popular-maths book by a member of the London Mathematical Society who also has a sideline in stand-up comedy

Matt Parker is some sort of unholy fusion of a prankster, wizard and brilliant nerd - clever, funny and ever so slightly naughty

Matt Parker is a lovely, funny, big, dork

Shows off maths at its most playful and multifarious, ranging from classics like knot theory and ruler-and-compass constructions to more whimsical topics like the topology of beer logos and error-correcting scarves

Jordan Ellenberg, author of HOW NOT TO BE WRONG

This is the best book on recreational mathematics since Martin Gardner's My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles

Harold D. Shane, Mathematics Emeritus, Baruch Coll., CUNY

This is the complete guide to exploring the fascinating world of maths you were never told about at school. Stand-up comedian and mathematician Matt Parker uses bizarre Klein Bottles, unimaginably small pizza slices, knots no one can untie and computers built from dominoes to reveal some of the most exotic and fascinating ideas in mathematics. Starting with simple numbers and algebra, this book goes on to deal with inconceivably big numbers in more dimensions than you ever knew existed. And always with something for you to make or do along the way.

Matt Parker

This book is an attempt to rescue trigonometry from the bounds of boredom... Parker, who was born in Australia, is maths royalty... Parker is funny, likeable and aware enough of his audience to carry them along. And those who persevere will end up smarter than they were when they started it. You’ll use triangles to understand Einstein’s relativity, and end up at the stark realisation that, at the quantum level, matter — you, I, this book — is all just a set of triangles

Matt Parker is a real nerd’s nerd... but we’re in safe hands here as we range from those curvy walls of glass that architects seem to love, to why everyone sees a different rainbow. A funny and often surprising guide to the history of triangles — and the applications (both practical and highly impractical) of trigonometry

I felt well looked-after, and handled with saint-like patience... Parker has a fine old time with his material, and only a curmudgeon could fail to be charmed by his willingness to call the elongated pentagonal gyrocupolarotunda a “dumb shape”, or Heron’s 2,000-year-old formula for finding the area of a triangle “stupid”. Nor, in the latter case, is he wrong. Four stars

The maths he expounds so expertly and so clearly is always fascinating

Very funny... When it clicks, it is glorious

Despite dealing with what might be familiar concepts, Love Triangle shows that geometry and trigonometry can pop up in exciting and unexpected places. From cosmology to skateboarding, Parker argues that triangles underpin both the epic and the everyday. The book, which is funny and accessible, would also be suitable for keen teenage readers

Move over Euclid. It&rsquo;s Parker Time. Love Triangle is a blissful blend of pure science and pure merriment. Edifying, entertaining, excellent!

Matt Parker is unique: he's made me laugh about math many times by showing just how weird it can get. He's also made me cry about math by showing how transcendently beautiful it is

Fine. Triangles are now my favourite shape

The author has a gift for making somewhat tedious topics not only comprehensible and absorbing, but also great fun... Parker&rsquo;s tireless enthusiasm, light touch, and inviting manner make for a reading experience akin to a visit to Epcot Center, led by a guide in possession of childlike wonder in addition to adult acumen and humor. The author never gets mired in the weeds, even as he manages to cover a tremendous amount of detailed information, aided by illustrations that feature appealing captions running the gamut from simple to complex. A rare book about math sure to make you smile, despite your feelings about the subject. Once again, Parker measures up

Matt Parker

Praise for Love Triangle

This book is an attempt to rescue trigonometry from the bounds of boredom... Parker, who was born in Australia, is maths royalty... Parker is funny, likeable and aware enough of his audience to carry them along. And ...

Matt Parker is a real nerd’s nerd... but we’re in safe hands here as we range from those curvy walls of glass that architects seem to love, to why everyone sees a different rainbow. A funny and often surprising guid ...

I felt well looked-after, and handled with saint-like patience... Parker has a fine old time with his material, and only a curmudgeon could fail to be charmed by his willingness to call the elongated pentagonal gyro ...

This book is an attempt to rescue trigonometry from the bounds of boredom... Parker, who was born in Australia, is maths royalty... Parker is funny, likeable and aware enough of his audience to carry them along. And ...

Matt Parker is a real nerd’s nerd... but we’re in safe hands here as we range from those curvy walls of glass that architects seem to love, to why everyone sees a different rainbow. A funny and often surprising guid ...

I felt well looked-after, and handled with saint-like patience... Parker has a fine old time with his material, and only a curmudgeon could fail to be charmed by his willingness to call the elongated pentagonal gyro ...

This book is an attempt to rescue trigonometry from the bounds of boredom... Parker, who was born in Australia, is maths royalty... Parker is funny, likeable and aware enough of his audience to carry them along. And ...

Matt Parker is a real nerd’s nerd... but we’re in safe hands here as we range from those curvy walls of glass that architects seem to love, to why everyone sees a different rainbow. A funny and often surprising guid ...

I felt well looked-after, and handled with saint-like patience... Parker has a fine old time with his material, and only a curmudgeon could fail to be charmed by his willingness to call the elongated pentagonal gyro ...

Books by Matt Parker

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