100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know - 9780393338676

"Barrow's wonderfully informative book should charm both lovers and haters of mathematics."-Sheldon Lee Glashow, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics

Have you ever wondered why you always seem to get stuck in the longest line? Why two's company but three's a crowd? Or why there are six degrees of separation instead of seven?

Mathematics can reveal things about our surprisingly complex world that just can't be learned in any other way. In this hugely informative and endlessly entertaining book, eminent cosmologist and writer John D. Barrow takes the most baffling of everyday phenomenaùfrom the odds of winning the lottery to the physics of sobriety tests and the reasoning behind divorce settlementsùand explains why things work the way they do. With simple math, lucid explanations, and accompanying illustrations, he sheds light on the dark and shadowy corners of the world we all think we understand so well.

"I suspect the craft behind this fun book will only really come to Eight as we attempt to tell Barrow's stories to our friends. Suddenly, we will realize how much effort Barrow has expended in explaining difficult things simply."-Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph