Thinking Better

The book in three sentences 

From measuring the circumference of the earth in 240BC to the success of lastminute.com, from Florence Nightingale to Doughnut Economics, mathematical shortcuts and thinking better have played a vital part in human flourishing. This book is an engaging romp exploring the mathematics behind how creating shortcuts have transformed the world in which we live. Each chapter begins with a puzzle to challenge the way we think about approaching problems, goes through the history of how thinking about this problem has led to some incredible feats of engineering, medicinal developments and more, before returning to the original problem for the answer. 

Impressions 

I love the thrill of discovering something new and this book is packed full of amazing mathematics and insights. For as long as I can remember I have known that there are 180 in a triangle so to meet non Euclidien geometry where triangles can have more than 180 was amazing. Du Sautoy has an engaging writing style and had an ability to bring to life the mathematical giants on whose shoulders we now stand. Although some of the types of mathematics don’t apply directly to my life, the skill of thinking differently about a problem is one that will benefit us all. 

How I discovered it

I can’t quite remember.  I heard it recommended on a podcast, I think. Possibly, A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail. 

Who should read it?

If you have an interest in mathematics or you like to learn new things. My mind was blown several times. 

How the book has changed me

I’m not sure there book has changed my behaviour going forward but it did challenge my thinking (especially non-Euclidian geometry) with what I thought were facts. I have always been attracted to a short cut. This book validated my view of life!

My Top 3 Quotes

If we seek order and security the result OSS likely to be boredom and sameness. But rejecting order for the sake of change and novelty brings danger and uncertainty… the history of culture can be interpreted as a dynamic tension between the quest for order and the flight from ennui- John Cawelti from Adventure Mystery and Romance

‘The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing,’ wrote the Greek poet Archilochus. It was the springboard for the foxy philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s essay that seeks to divide thinkers into two categories. Foxes tap into a broad range of interests, a horizontal thought process. The hedgehogs think deeply, a thought process that runs vertically, perpendicular to the foxes’. Foxes are interested in everything. The hedgehog is single minded in its obsessions. …

But there is an alternative (to trying to be both types of thinker). Collaboration. 

At every step in our journey through life we encountered junctions with many different pathways leading into the distance. Each choice involves uncertainty about which will get you to your destination. Trusting or intuition to make the decision often ends up with us making the suboptimal choice. Turning uncertainty into numbers had proved a potent easy of analysing the paths and finding the shortcut to your goal. There mathematical theory of probability hasn’t eliminated risk but allows us to manage it more effectively. The strategy enables us to analyse all the possible scenarios that the future holds and then to see what proportion of them lead to success or to failure. This gives you a much better map of the future on which to base your decisions about which path to choose.