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Woo's Wonderful World of Maths
Have you ever wondered why a rainbow is curved? Or why left-handers aren't extinct? How a sunflower is like a synchronised swimmer, or a lightning bolt is like a blood vessel?The answer to all these questions and more can be summed up in one simple MATHS.As the inimitable Eddie Woo explains, maths is not just about numbers. Maths is about patterns, and our universe is extraordinarily patterned. With enthusiasm and wonder, Eddie is here to help us discover these patterns.With engaging clarity and entertaining anecdotes, Eddie demonstrates the intricacy of maths in all the things we love - from music in our iPods to our credit cards. Filled with humour and heart, this book will fascinate, entertain and illuminate the maths that surrounds us.This is a specially formatted fixed layout ebook that retains the look and feel of the print book.LONGLISTED FOR THE ABIA GENERAL NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019PRAISE FOR EDDIE WOO"I never thought I'd read a maths book cover to cover, let alone sing its praises. Eddie Woo makes maths fun, accessible and relevant. Now we can all benefit from his extraordinary skill as a teacher." JENNY BROCKIE, journalist and TV host"Not just a great teacher, Woo's Wonderful World of Maths shows Eddie to be a storyteller too. Is there anything the Woo cannot do?" ADAM SPENCER, Ambassador for Mathematics, University of Sydney
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 25, 2018
291 people are currently reading
1158 people want to read
About the author
Eddie Woo
10 books51 followersEddie Woo is the head mathematics teacher at Cherrybrook Technology High School, Sydney. He has been teaching maths for more than ten years.
In 2012, Eddie started recording his lessons and uploading them to Youtube - creating 'Wootube'. Since then, he has amassed a following of more than 270,000 subscribers and his videos have been viewed more than 14 million times.
In 2018, Eddie was named Australia's Local Hero of and shortlisted as one of the top ten teachers in the world.
In 2012, Eddie started recording his lessons and uploading them to Youtube - creating 'Wootube'. Since then, he has amassed a following of more than 270,000 subscribers and his videos have been viewed more than 14 million times.
In 2018, Eddie was named Australia's Local Hero of and shortlisted as one of the top ten teachers in the world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
June 4, 2019
woah look at me reading a math book \(//∇//)\
May 28, 2019
I am squarely in the target audience of this book!
I loved every single page of it, underlined pretty much half this book and have had several long conversations with my family as I was read it in. In fact, while we were driving to the beach, I read parts of it out loud to my kids. This book is the perfect combination of math, fun, learning, fascination, and joy!
This book is broken into chapters, most of which are not intercorrelated (with a few exceptions) where there's a new mathematical concept covered in each chapter. It mentions all things math like fractals, algebra, chaos theory, graph theory, encryption and more. I knew many of these concepts and yet it was still delightful to reread what I knew and fascinating to read what I didn't know.
If you're a fan of math or have someone in your life who might not appreciate how magical math is and how it's a part of every single aspect of our life, I think this would make an excellent gift. I hope they will love this book as much as I did.
I loved every single page of it, underlined pretty much half this book and have had several long conversations with my family as I was read it in. In fact, while we were driving to the beach, I read parts of it out loud to my kids. This book is the perfect combination of math, fun, learning, fascination, and joy!
This book is broken into chapters, most of which are not intercorrelated (with a few exceptions) where there's a new mathematical concept covered in each chapter. It mentions all things math like fractals, algebra, chaos theory, graph theory, encryption and more. I knew many of these concepts and yet it was still delightful to reread what I knew and fascinating to read what I didn't know.
If you're a fan of math or have someone in your life who might not appreciate how magical math is and how it's a part of every single aspect of our life, I think this would make an excellent gift. I hope they will love this book as much as I did.
January 8, 2019
A fun read no doubt. Woo is a national treasure and quite inspiring in his story telling. If I am being harsh it was almost too quick to get through and could have benefited from staying longer in the concepts. As just as something was introduced - briefly - he moved on and I didn’t get to dwell on the implications and applications of the concepts he explained. I think it would be awesome to read this book in say year nine alongside a maths text book.
January 24, 2024
This would be a great pick for a middle or high school library. Woo, true to his name, is an enthusiastic and fun guide to mathematical thinking. That said, it's pretty basic stuff even for the functionally innumerate like myself, and seems more like a teaser than a full treatment. It's not bad; just lightweight. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
November 25, 2018
This is not a book for mathematicians — but it is a book for all those who, for whatever reason, have baulked at, or trembled in fear when confronted with the subject (and that probably includes most of us!). Here we have a book just about anyone can read as if it were a novel and it won’t terrify you one bit!
In 2018 Eddie was named Australian Local Hero of the year, and shortlisted as one of the top teachers in the world. This wonderful distinction is based on his amazing worldwide success following his YouTube offerings of his lessons. This is his first book dealing with his specialty, and it sets out his unique approach to the subject. Reading it gives us a sample of his ability to “humanise” (if that’s the right word) maths. Aware, because of his own experiences, of how intimidating and joyless maths can be, Woo has thought the matter through and come up with an approach to the subject that derives more from curiosity and intrigue than on anything else.
This is not to say that his makes maths simple — he is fully aware that, in its deeper manifestations, mathematics requires the strictest of logical analysis and intense concentration; but to start from there is counter-productive. Instead, he has developed his teaching style by flipping the notion on its head: start with the real world (both physical and biological), stimulate the curiosities that might arise, titillate with allusions to magic tricks, and basically asking the reader to question whether anything can be understood by what we discover, all the time keeping the inquirer steadfastly connected to the questions raised. Before you know it, you are being introduced into the basic approaches of one of the many maths disciplines we have (without necessarily telling us so!). If one then becomes “attracted” to that specific discipline in the world of maths, one can then pursue the subject further: but this time, the learning comes self-motivated from the student, not imposed by anyone or anything else. The process will make the student want to learn more!
Perhaps the ideal way to get into Woo’s way of thinking is to follow him on YouTube. Failing that, this book is the next best thing. By whatever means one approaches the subject, at the end (literally, in the case of this book!) one will be able to agree unconditionally with Woo’s conclusion: Mathematics is the ultimate skeleton key: if you can learn to wield it, it can unlock anything.
In 2018 Eddie was named Australian Local Hero of the year, and shortlisted as one of the top teachers in the world. This wonderful distinction is based on his amazing worldwide success following his YouTube offerings of his lessons. This is his first book dealing with his specialty, and it sets out his unique approach to the subject. Reading it gives us a sample of his ability to “humanise” (if that’s the right word) maths. Aware, because of his own experiences, of how intimidating and joyless maths can be, Woo has thought the matter through and come up with an approach to the subject that derives more from curiosity and intrigue than on anything else.
This is not to say that his makes maths simple — he is fully aware that, in its deeper manifestations, mathematics requires the strictest of logical analysis and intense concentration; but to start from there is counter-productive. Instead, he has developed his teaching style by flipping the notion on its head: start with the real world (both physical and biological), stimulate the curiosities that might arise, titillate with allusions to magic tricks, and basically asking the reader to question whether anything can be understood by what we discover, all the time keeping the inquirer steadfastly connected to the questions raised. Before you know it, you are being introduced into the basic approaches of one of the many maths disciplines we have (without necessarily telling us so!). If one then becomes “attracted” to that specific discipline in the world of maths, one can then pursue the subject further: but this time, the learning comes self-motivated from the student, not imposed by anyone or anything else. The process will make the student want to learn more!
Perhaps the ideal way to get into Woo’s way of thinking is to follow him on YouTube. Failing that, this book is the next best thing. By whatever means one approaches the subject, at the end (literally, in the case of this book!) one will be able to agree unconditionally with Woo’s conclusion: Mathematics is the ultimate skeleton key: if you can learn to wield it, it can unlock anything.
January 28, 2020
I would recommend everyone, independently of their interest in math (or lack thereof) or even their level of mathematical education to read this wonderful book.
As an engineer, I have had to study and go through a lot of math in my life. I have learnt and applied many mathematical concepts over time, but along the way I lost a lot of interest in the topic itself: math became a tool, and many mathematical ideas seemed too abstract or theoretical, or disconnected from reality to my taste.
Reading this book I released that a part of the issue was that I was looking at mathematics from a wrong perspective, and part of it was that many things have never been properly or clearly explained before. Eddie Woo has managed throughout his book to raise my eyebrows over and over, as well as piqued my interest in rediscovering math.
If you are looking for a math book, this is not it. If you are looking for a book to get you interested in mathematics, it definitely is.
P.S. I think this would be a great gift for teenagers or children around 12 years old, so they can see the beauty of maths and become interested. Also for parents who want to understand themselves how to motivate their children who are not interested in maths.
As an engineer, I have had to study and go through a lot of math in my life. I have learnt and applied many mathematical concepts over time, but along the way I lost a lot of interest in the topic itself: math became a tool, and many mathematical ideas seemed too abstract or theoretical, or disconnected from reality to my taste.
Reading this book I released that a part of the issue was that I was looking at mathematics from a wrong perspective, and part of it was that many things have never been properly or clearly explained before. Eddie Woo has managed throughout his book to raise my eyebrows over and over, as well as piqued my interest in rediscovering math.
If you are looking for a math book, this is not it. If you are looking for a book to get you interested in mathematics, it definitely is.
P.S. I think this would be a great gift for teenagers or children around 12 years old, so they can see the beauty of maths and become interested. Also for parents who want to understand themselves how to motivate their children who are not interested in maths.
December 12, 2018
3.5 ☆
Finished reading ... Woo's Wonderful World of Maths / Eddie Woo ... 08 December 2018
ISBN: 9781760554217 … 352 pp.
A jolly good read for anyone who has never studied maths or who dropped maths as soon as your school allowed you to do so.
Eddie Woo, a whiz of a maths teacher, entertainingly explains things that you never realised had maths as their foundation – how are sunflowers and synchronised swimmers alike? The very opposite of learning maths formulae by rote as was the case 'in my day'. It's almost like a fun book of maths trivia. “Oooh, I didn't know that!” - except often you probably did without realising it.
Some of my random trivia takings from the book ….
- One thing I really didn't know: this division symbol ÷ is called an obelus. Can't wait to use that word in Scrabble!
- Eddie obviously doesn't do the family supermarket shopping … otherwise, instead of a rather laborious explanation of algebra via a card trick, he would have used the example of buying cornflakes: is it cheaper to by two small boxes or one big box? That is everyday algebra!!
- Why aren't left-handers extinct? That chapter, the first I turned to because I have a leftie granddaughter, didn't do it for me either. Survival of the fittest, that somewhat Darwinian principle, I get. But left-handedness??? Not so sure on Eddie's telling.
- The hotter water is, the faster it cools. Phone batteries behave similarly.
- No mention of the form of bellringing called change ringing. Plenty of maths there, for those so inclined.
All in all, this book is worth a read. This is no boring text book. In being entertaining it will have you looking at maths in a new way. Even finding it useful sometimes – or multiple times every day, as Eddie clearly shows.
By the way – don't be put off by 352 pages. There's lots of illustrations and white space (and red space too – it a very red and white book!).
Borrowed from my local library.
Finished reading ... Woo's Wonderful World of Maths / Eddie Woo ... 08 December 2018
ISBN: 9781760554217 … 352 pp.
A jolly good read for anyone who has never studied maths or who dropped maths as soon as your school allowed you to do so.
Eddie Woo, a whiz of a maths teacher, entertainingly explains things that you never realised had maths as their foundation – how are sunflowers and synchronised swimmers alike? The very opposite of learning maths formulae by rote as was the case 'in my day'. It's almost like a fun book of maths trivia. “Oooh, I didn't know that!” - except often you probably did without realising it.
Some of my random trivia takings from the book ….
- One thing I really didn't know: this division symbol ÷ is called an obelus. Can't wait to use that word in Scrabble!
- Eddie obviously doesn't do the family supermarket shopping … otherwise, instead of a rather laborious explanation of algebra via a card trick, he would have used the example of buying cornflakes: is it cheaper to by two small boxes or one big box? That is everyday algebra!!
- Why aren't left-handers extinct? That chapter, the first I turned to because I have a leftie granddaughter, didn't do it for me either. Survival of the fittest, that somewhat Darwinian principle, I get. But left-handedness??? Not so sure on Eddie's telling.
- The hotter water is, the faster it cools. Phone batteries behave similarly.
- No mention of the form of bellringing called change ringing. Plenty of maths there, for those so inclined.
All in all, this book is worth a read. This is no boring text book. In being entertaining it will have you looking at maths in a new way. Even finding it useful sometimes – or multiple times every day, as Eddie clearly shows.
By the way – don't be put off by 352 pages. There's lots of illustrations and white space (and red space too – it a very red and white book!).
Borrowed from my local library.
April 12, 2020
Wish I’d had this book to read when I was doing A maths, when it all seemed very abstract (read: pointless to a 16/17 yr old). Really interesting book but some of the concepts were still tricky to comprehend!!
March 13, 2025
A biologist is someone who studies living things. A physicist studies moving things. A chemist studies substances. An astronomer studies stars and planets. A geologist studies rocks. mathematicians study patterns.
A pair of odd numbers always add up to an even number. The exterior angles of any polygon, no matter how big or small or irregular, always add up to a full revolution of 360 degrees. The rows of Pascal’s Triangle always add up to a power of 2.
There are so many things I love about my children. One of my favorite qualities is their perpetual wonder.
semicircular rainbows. The full version can indeed be seen when viewed from the air, such as out the window of a plane if your timing is lucky enough!
a choir of raindrops has conspired together to put on a light show so breathtaking and ethereal that if it didn’t just appear in the sky above our heads, we probably wouldn’t believe it.
Mathematicians call these kinds of graphs periodic, since they repeat over and over at consistent intervals of time (“periods”). The actual shape you’re looking at gets the fancy title of sinusoidal wave, sine for short.
The hollow body of the guitar provides a space where the vibrations can echo and amplify.
the beauty of a musical instrument is that you can make it play different notes. On a guitar, the way you do that is by pressing a string down onto one of the bars positioned on the guitar’s neck, which are called frets.
Pressing down on a fret essentially makes the string act as though it were a shorter version of itself—the part that you pluck has a smaller length than if you had left the string untouched. And a shorter string can vibrate up and down faster, while a longer string has to vibrate up and down more slowly.
thicker, heavier strings also move more slowly and so they produce notes with lower pitch/deeper sounds.
Beethoven is known for his astonishing skill in arranging sounds of consonance—like the harmony shown opposite—together with sounds of dissonance, which cause the listener to yearn for a resolution
You can see here that the musical notes in dissonant chords get very close, but never seem to start or stop together at neat intervals. The human ear bristles at such sounds, which is why our musical yearning is actually the unconscious desire for mathematical harmony.
rates of exponential growth, which seemed to have a fixed “cap” (the number e).
exponential growth (or in the case of my cup of tea, exponential decay
law of diminishing returns
Mathematicians call this idea a limit
This number is so important that it gets a special name: e. You can take that to mean “exponential,” or as an abbreviation of the other name it’s been given: Euler’s number (referring to the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler).
Pi Day is usually marked on March 14
Here we brandish one of the mathematician’s favorite problemsolving techniques: Tackle a simpler version of the question first, and see if you can observe a pattern or structure that can help you with the harder original question.
Often the easiest way to make a question simpler is to make it smaller. So, let’s start with the smallest this question can possibly be: What if there was just a single chocolate in the box?
e = 2.718281828459045 …
100 ÷ e = 36.7879441171 . . .
phi (as in the Greek letter). Its symbol is φ
The value of phi is exactly equal to (1 + √5) ÷ 2, or approximately 1.6180339887.
The golden rectangle is universally recognized as an aesthetically proportioned figure. bank card, or perhaps a driver’s license
Try your birthday, or any random set of numbers. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. Every sequence produced like this eventually approaches the golden ratio.
I use a piece of mathematical shorthand in the table on the previous page called a power (it’s also called an index or an exponent—which is where we get the word exponential).
Mathematicians always want to write things in the most efficient way possible, and they often invent all-new symbols and types of notation to allow them to say things more quickly. Multiplication began as a shorthand for repeated addition: When you see 3 × 5, that’s equivalent to seeing 5 + 5 + 5.
Applied mathematics. musicians don’t usually play music because it solves a problem, and most people listen to music because they enjoy it. In mathematical terms, we call this pure mathematics
This round trip, about 15,000 miles long, takes less than a fifth of a second.
the check digit
set of steps (called an algorithm)
if any digits are moved into a different place (e.g., 61021994)— which is called a transposition error
private key encryption
transposition cipher
significant limitations
Just like infantry gave way to cavalry and naval cannons were superseded by cruise missiles, there has been (and still is) a mathematical arms race between the cryptographers trying to keep messages secret and the cryptanalysts who are trying to crack them
Professor Robert Lewand in his book Cryptological Mathematics
mathematicians call a trapdoor function. trapdoors are easy to fall down into but difficult to climb back out of.
what are the prime numbers that give 1,349 when they are multiplied? Not so easy! (The answer is 19 and 71, by the way.) This kind of problem isn’t just hard for our squishy brains; even insanely powerful computers find this problem (called prime factorization) incredibly time-consuming as the numbers get larger and larger. Multiplying is easy, but factoring is hard: It’s a trapdoor.
“Precrime Department” (as in Minority Report)
quincunx
mathematics hones our ability to look at things that appear to be completely different on the outside, and see that they are unified by a single and beautiful pattern.
a bell curve, but mathematicians call it the normal distribution.
“predict the future.” How long will it take for you to arrive at your destination if you are catching a bus from your home into a city center?
While each individual journey is difficult to predict—just like the path of a single ball down the quincunx—the group of all journeys from your suburb into the city cannot help but settle itself inexorably into something resembling the normal distribution. The traffic lights on the journey let some vehicles through and stop others, like the pins sending some balls left and some right. As we take more and more journeys, the times add up like balls at the bottom of the quincunx. This is how online maps build what’s called a probabilistic model for predicting how long a typical journey will last.
But if you knew everything about the coin and how it was launched into the air—its weight, the force with which it is flipped, the humidity of the air and so on—it would truly be possible to know the outcome of the coin flip before it happened.
Train maps show you the relationships between stations (in terms of connections within the network). Mathematical maps show you the relationships between numbers, in terms of how one number can lead to another once certain mathematical operations have been carried out on it.
ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED. Pascal’s Triangle. have a look at what happens if you highlight all the even numbers you can find.
in some parts of Europe they use the gradian, of which there are 400 (not 360) in a full revolution—much nicer to handle with the decimal system. A quarter turn, also known as a right angle, is exactly 100 gradians—which makes a whole lot more sense than the comparatively arbitrary 90 degrees that we’re used to.
Just how many factors does 360 have? A lot! In fact, every number from 1 to 10—except for 7—is a factor of 360 (and 360 is the smallest number in existence to have this quality). If you keep on going, you’ll find that 360 has exactly 24 factors, which is not bad considering the previous number (359) has only 2 factors, and the next number (361) has only 3 factors!
The angle 7.2° is exactly one-fiftieth of a full revolution (360°), which means that if we know the distance between Alexandria and Syene, we just need to multiply it by 50 to get the full circumference of Earth. he came back with an answer of 44,100 kilometers. He was off by a factor of 10 percent
mathematicians probe the unknown not just looking for useful ideas (like the ability to encrypt messages, or the ability to predict the path of the planets and stars), but also out of a desire to see if something unusual or unexpected will appear. And this mathematical field—called number theory—is brimming with the unusual and unexpected.
Why were some elements able to conduct electricity effectively, while others couldn’t? Why did some have high boiling points, while others didn’t? No one had a particularly satisfying answer that made sense of all the data.
In a sea of chaos, there will always be islands of order—as long as the sea is large enough. Ramsey theory. specialized field called graph theory.
the feeling that after so many losses in a row, they were bound to get a win eventually. This is called the gambler’s fallacy.
“scientific proof.” This has been the keystone of human progress since the Enlightenment, and without it we would arguably still be living in the Dark Ages. experimentation and repeatable observations.
While science relies on experiments and history uses sources, mathematics has a different tool: logic.
while it’s impossible to see how much charge is left in a battery at any given time, it is possible to get a rough idea by measuring the rate at which electricity is being dished out by the battery.
Dear Algebra, Please stop asking us to find yourx. She’s never coming back, and don’t ask y.
mathematicians love to “maximize lexical density”—that is, squeeze the most meaning into the smallest space.
division symbol itself, which is actually called an obelus
left-handed boxers reverse this expectation, since they naturally stand in a mirror image of the orthodox stance. This is called the southpaw stance
10 percent—of all people being left-handed.
probabilistic independence or correlation coefficients
“Chocolate eaters live longer, say scientists” or “People who swear are more honest,”
visualize this data, the scatter plot
A pair of odd numbers always add up to an even number. The exterior angles of any polygon, no matter how big or small or irregular, always add up to a full revolution of 360 degrees. The rows of Pascal’s Triangle always add up to a power of 2.
There are so many things I love about my children. One of my favorite qualities is their perpetual wonder.
semicircular rainbows. The full version can indeed be seen when viewed from the air, such as out the window of a plane if your timing is lucky enough!
a choir of raindrops has conspired together to put on a light show so breathtaking and ethereal that if it didn’t just appear in the sky above our heads, we probably wouldn’t believe it.
Mathematicians call these kinds of graphs periodic, since they repeat over and over at consistent intervals of time (“periods”). The actual shape you’re looking at gets the fancy title of sinusoidal wave, sine for short.
The hollow body of the guitar provides a space where the vibrations can echo and amplify.
the beauty of a musical instrument is that you can make it play different notes. On a guitar, the way you do that is by pressing a string down onto one of the bars positioned on the guitar’s neck, which are called frets.
Pressing down on a fret essentially makes the string act as though it were a shorter version of itself—the part that you pluck has a smaller length than if you had left the string untouched. And a shorter string can vibrate up and down faster, while a longer string has to vibrate up and down more slowly.
thicker, heavier strings also move more slowly and so they produce notes with lower pitch/deeper sounds.
Beethoven is known for his astonishing skill in arranging sounds of consonance—like the harmony shown opposite—together with sounds of dissonance, which cause the listener to yearn for a resolution
You can see here that the musical notes in dissonant chords get very close, but never seem to start or stop together at neat intervals. The human ear bristles at such sounds, which is why our musical yearning is actually the unconscious desire for mathematical harmony.
rates of exponential growth, which seemed to have a fixed “cap” (the number e).
exponential growth (or in the case of my cup of tea, exponential decay
law of diminishing returns
Mathematicians call this idea a limit
This number is so important that it gets a special name: e. You can take that to mean “exponential,” or as an abbreviation of the other name it’s been given: Euler’s number (referring to the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler).
Pi Day is usually marked on March 14
Here we brandish one of the mathematician’s favorite problemsolving techniques: Tackle a simpler version of the question first, and see if you can observe a pattern or structure that can help you with the harder original question.
Often the easiest way to make a question simpler is to make it smaller. So, let’s start with the smallest this question can possibly be: What if there was just a single chocolate in the box?
e = 2.718281828459045 …
100 ÷ e = 36.7879441171 . . .
phi (as in the Greek letter). Its symbol is φ
The value of phi is exactly equal to (1 + √5) ÷ 2, or approximately 1.6180339887.
The golden rectangle is universally recognized as an aesthetically proportioned figure. bank card, or perhaps a driver’s license
Try your birthday, or any random set of numbers. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. Every sequence produced like this eventually approaches the golden ratio.
I use a piece of mathematical shorthand in the table on the previous page called a power (it’s also called an index or an exponent—which is where we get the word exponential).
Mathematicians always want to write things in the most efficient way possible, and they often invent all-new symbols and types of notation to allow them to say things more quickly. Multiplication began as a shorthand for repeated addition: When you see 3 × 5, that’s equivalent to seeing 5 + 5 + 5.
Applied mathematics. musicians don’t usually play music because it solves a problem, and most people listen to music because they enjoy it. In mathematical terms, we call this pure mathematics
This round trip, about 15,000 miles long, takes less than a fifth of a second.
the check digit
set of steps (called an algorithm)
if any digits are moved into a different place (e.g., 61021994)— which is called a transposition error
private key encryption
transposition cipher
significant limitations
Just like infantry gave way to cavalry and naval cannons were superseded by cruise missiles, there has been (and still is) a mathematical arms race between the cryptographers trying to keep messages secret and the cryptanalysts who are trying to crack them
Professor Robert Lewand in his book Cryptological Mathematics
mathematicians call a trapdoor function. trapdoors are easy to fall down into but difficult to climb back out of.
what are the prime numbers that give 1,349 when they are multiplied? Not so easy! (The answer is 19 and 71, by the way.) This kind of problem isn’t just hard for our squishy brains; even insanely powerful computers find this problem (called prime factorization) incredibly time-consuming as the numbers get larger and larger. Multiplying is easy, but factoring is hard: It’s a trapdoor.
“Precrime Department” (as in Minority Report)
quincunx
mathematics hones our ability to look at things that appear to be completely different on the outside, and see that they are unified by a single and beautiful pattern.
a bell curve, but mathematicians call it the normal distribution.
“predict the future.” How long will it take for you to arrive at your destination if you are catching a bus from your home into a city center?
While each individual journey is difficult to predict—just like the path of a single ball down the quincunx—the group of all journeys from your suburb into the city cannot help but settle itself inexorably into something resembling the normal distribution. The traffic lights on the journey let some vehicles through and stop others, like the pins sending some balls left and some right. As we take more and more journeys, the times add up like balls at the bottom of the quincunx. This is how online maps build what’s called a probabilistic model for predicting how long a typical journey will last.
But if you knew everything about the coin and how it was launched into the air—its weight, the force with which it is flipped, the humidity of the air and so on—it would truly be possible to know the outcome of the coin flip before it happened.
Train maps show you the relationships between stations (in terms of connections within the network). Mathematical maps show you the relationships between numbers, in terms of how one number can lead to another once certain mathematical operations have been carried out on it.
ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED. Pascal’s Triangle. have a look at what happens if you highlight all the even numbers you can find.
in some parts of Europe they use the gradian, of which there are 400 (not 360) in a full revolution—much nicer to handle with the decimal system. A quarter turn, also known as a right angle, is exactly 100 gradians—which makes a whole lot more sense than the comparatively arbitrary 90 degrees that we’re used to.
Just how many factors does 360 have? A lot! In fact, every number from 1 to 10—except for 7—is a factor of 360 (and 360 is the smallest number in existence to have this quality). If you keep on going, you’ll find that 360 has exactly 24 factors, which is not bad considering the previous number (359) has only 2 factors, and the next number (361) has only 3 factors!
The angle 7.2° is exactly one-fiftieth of a full revolution (360°), which means that if we know the distance between Alexandria and Syene, we just need to multiply it by 50 to get the full circumference of Earth. he came back with an answer of 44,100 kilometers. He was off by a factor of 10 percent
mathematicians probe the unknown not just looking for useful ideas (like the ability to encrypt messages, or the ability to predict the path of the planets and stars), but also out of a desire to see if something unusual or unexpected will appear. And this mathematical field—called number theory—is brimming with the unusual and unexpected.
Why were some elements able to conduct electricity effectively, while others couldn’t? Why did some have high boiling points, while others didn’t? No one had a particularly satisfying answer that made sense of all the data.
In a sea of chaos, there will always be islands of order—as long as the sea is large enough. Ramsey theory. specialized field called graph theory.
the feeling that after so many losses in a row, they were bound to get a win eventually. This is called the gambler’s fallacy.
“scientific proof.” This has been the keystone of human progress since the Enlightenment, and without it we would arguably still be living in the Dark Ages. experimentation and repeatable observations.
While science relies on experiments and history uses sources, mathematics has a different tool: logic.
while it’s impossible to see how much charge is left in a battery at any given time, it is possible to get a rough idea by measuring the rate at which electricity is being dished out by the battery.
Dear Algebra, Please stop asking us to find yourx. She’s never coming back, and don’t ask y.
mathematicians love to “maximize lexical density”—that is, squeeze the most meaning into the smallest space.
division symbol itself, which is actually called an obelus
left-handed boxers reverse this expectation, since they naturally stand in a mirror image of the orthodox stance. This is called the southpaw stance
10 percent—of all people being left-handed.
probabilistic independence or correlation coefficients
“Chocolate eaters live longer, say scientists” or “People who swear are more honest,”
visualize this data, the scatter plot
December 5, 2022
It’s okay.
Reminded me of my high school trig, calculus, and prob and stat classes.
Reminded me of my high school trig, calculus, and prob and stat classes.
September 3, 2019
YouTuber Eddie Woo tries, and succeeds, to make math interesting in It’s a Numberful World.
“If you go down deep enough into anything, you will find mathematics.”
Eddie proves his point by explaining why rainbows are round, blood vessels and lightning bolts look alike, and the zeros are in the middle of the Plinko board.
I’m pretty sure that It’s a Numberful World is for young folks. But I found the simple explanations of natural phenomena fascinating. Although I’ve taken college calculus, I learned a lot from the book. There are many things that most wouldn’t think of as math. The shape of a sunflower, Netflix’ movie suggestions, and the sound of a guitar come to mind.
If you want to revisit your childlike feelings of awe, just read about the golden triangle, pi, phi, and e. Even better, if you have a child having difficulties understanding why they should study math, this would be a perfect gift. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars! Or should I say spheres (read the book to find out why).
Thanks to The Experiment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.
“If you go down deep enough into anything, you will find mathematics.”
Eddie proves his point by explaining why rainbows are round, blood vessels and lightning bolts look alike, and the zeros are in the middle of the Plinko board.
I’m pretty sure that It’s a Numberful World is for young folks. But I found the simple explanations of natural phenomena fascinating. Although I’ve taken college calculus, I learned a lot from the book. There are many things that most wouldn’t think of as math. The shape of a sunflower, Netflix’ movie suggestions, and the sound of a guitar come to mind.
If you want to revisit your childlike feelings of awe, just read about the golden triangle, pi, phi, and e. Even better, if you have a child having difficulties understanding why they should study math, this would be a perfect gift. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5 stars! Or should I say spheres (read the book to find out why).
Thanks to The Experiment and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.
July 18, 2021
I discovered Eddie's book after falling in love with one of his youtube videos where he explains how dividing a number by 0 is undefined. Although that is more math-y, his book is a general introduction to patterns in the world and how maths helps us discover them. Eddie's writing is like having a friend share an astonishing math fact during lunch. A lot of them were new and fascinating to me despite hiding in plain sight over the years like the shapes of lightning and veins being the same. But most chapters end right when I get excited to learn more about them. I understand that this book is aimed at high schoolers with a fear of maths or people with a dislike for it but an appendix section would've been nice. A nice casual read that would get everyone ( even math lovers) get excited about it!
October 18, 2018
Well written, amusing, engaging. Must read for all who have ever studied mathematics. Couldn't put it down.
October 21, 2018
As everyone studies or uses mathematics, I think that this is a well written book that everyone should read. I now know a lot more than I did before I read it.
February 10, 2021
This is undoubtedly a book about mathematics that will appeal to the masses, in the very best way possible. Being easily understandable whilst also deeply intelligent, written with exact precision yet also full of heart, Woo embodies the wonder of a mathematician who is also a skilled storyteller.
A veritable buffet of fascinating mathematical ideas and logical reasoning, my only gripe is that it was a seemingly random smorgasbord even as each chapter was delectable in its own right. If only it were more like that of a carefully arranged tasting menu, with more intentional progression and an overarching narrative! Granted, this does give the reader the freedom to immediately dive in to what most captures his attention, and there is definitely no shortage of content to tantalise the mind.
Wholeheartedly recommend this to all: those who love maths, but especially to those who might think they hate maths or could never understand it—perhaps this might just be the book to persuade you otherwise!
A veritable buffet of fascinating mathematical ideas and logical reasoning, my only gripe is that it was a seemingly random smorgasbord even as each chapter was delectable in its own right. If only it were more like that of a carefully arranged tasting menu, with more intentional progression and an overarching narrative! Granted, this does give the reader the freedom to immediately dive in to what most captures his attention, and there is definitely no shortage of content to tantalise the mind.
Wholeheartedly recommend this to all: those who love maths, but especially to those who might think they hate maths or could never understand it—perhaps this might just be the book to persuade you otherwise!
February 20, 2024
This book is an absolute must-have for any math teacher that wants to invoke curiosity in their students about mathematics! By choosing topics that are low-floor high-ceiling in terms of the complexity from which they can be approached, the book opens the gates for anybody that might be interested in mathematics. I have been watching Eddie Woo's videos since 2018 and he continues to make a convincing argument that *everybody* is a math person, a point which is only supported by beautifully conveying both the simplicity and complexity of topics such as fractal geometry, conditional probability, and knot theory.
December 22, 2021
I'm a Maths teacher and a huge fan of Eddie's YouTube explanations. A student borrowed and read this and then gave it to me to read. Thinking I knew everything I needed to know to do my job, it took me a while to have a proper look at this book. I'm so glad I did. Eddie has a fantastic way of explaining Maths concepts and it definitely translated into the written word. It reads like fiction, getting readers hooked on his love of patterns. As a learner I felt joy. As a teacher I found much more satisfying ways of introducing concepts than I could ever have thought of.
March 11, 2019
As someone who never got maths in school, this book has helped me to not only understand it better, but enjoy it. It is written engagingly, with pictures, diagrams, and different sized fonts to emphasise certain words. My only problem is that Woo does not explain what field of maths each topic comes under and I would still like to know. For instance, is "knots" considered trigonometry, algebra, or statistics, or something else entirely? Regardless, I hope Woo writes more books!
March 17, 2024
math is useful
A good book for young adults that are learning math and can benefit from understanding practical implications. The examples are fairly simple and a bit dated but useful.
It took me three weeks to read this book, not because it was long or hard to understand. I found that I had little motivation to come back to the text and once reading it, the book had only minimal “stickiness”.
A good book for young adults that are learning math and can benefit from understanding practical implications. The examples are fairly simple and a bit dated but useful.
It took me three weeks to read this book, not because it was long or hard to understand. I found that I had little motivation to come back to the text and once reading it, the book had only minimal “stickiness”.
December 14, 2018
Who'd have thought that a book on maths could not only be readable but also enjoyable? If not totally capable of being understood, but that's me, not Eddie Woo. My maths teacher was Mr Stinson, US
WW2 Beaufighter pilot and easily distracted into wartime exploits. Should have kept a record of his quotable quotes, like telling the class to head off to morning assembly "single file in twos".
WW2 Beaufighter pilot and easily distracted into wartime exploits. Should have kept a record of his quotable quotes, like telling the class to head off to morning assembly "single file in twos".
November 18, 2022
A very accessible “popular maths” book that addresses a wide range of topics and concepts, with lots of helpful diagrams, tables and formulae.
My only beef is to do with the choice of red as a second / highlight colour - hugely distracting and not particularly effective. Would have much preferred to see colour pictures instead!
But well done Eddie on such a well-written and informative book.
My only beef is to do with the choice of red as a second / highlight colour - hugely distracting and not particularly effective. Would have much preferred to see colour pictures instead!
But well done Eddie on such a well-written and informative book.
January 11, 2023
Really interesting overview of some ways math is behind our everyday lives. I only wish it went into more detail- it felt like every time he introduced a really fascinating idea, it was the end of the chapter. But overall, an easy to read book that stayed engaging and had a lot of helpful illustrations!
March 28, 2024
Fascinating insights…
Woo offers readers fascinating insight into the ways in which mathematics intricately entwine with the natural world. Non-mathematicians may find themselves intrigued while “math people” will find new ways to explain math principles and applications to make them more easily comprehended by students and others.
Woo offers readers fascinating insight into the ways in which mathematics intricately entwine with the natural world. Non-mathematicians may find themselves intrigued while “math people” will find new ways to explain math principles and applications to make them more easily comprehended by students and others.
September 9, 2019
Eddie has successfully made me more interested in Maths teaching than ever. His passion, energy and deep compassion for students is both amazing and hard to duplicate...Wow! This is how teaching looks like when you actually enjoy it!
December 27, 2019
Excellent for kids. A bit too “simple”, it covers the interesting ideas of math in real life, just when I think, “that’s interesting.” It ends and the topic changes to something else. But, it’s a great book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 8, 2024
Eddie’s enthusiasm for maths and storytelling is undeniable whilst reading this book! I loved all of it and have lots to share now in the future with my own maths students!
Thanks for a well written book!
Thanks for a well written book!
March 2, 2024
Not an expected pick for someone who did not like math in school, but it does a good job of showing how math is really a part of just about everything and to look at it as a means of learning more about the world instead of drudgery.
August 14, 2024
There is nothing really wrong with this book but I chose to listen to it instead of read it and it drove me nuts hearing chapters of a person just saying numbers. I thought there would have been more theory. DNF’d at 64%
August 24, 2024
This book will make you appreciate your math teacher.
This is a great look at the mathematics all around us. I great enjoyed the writing and illustrations. I also learned a cool card trick. Highly recommended even if you failed math in high school.
This is a great look at the mathematics all around us. I great enjoyed the writing and illustrations. I also learned a cool card trick. Highly recommended even if you failed math in high school.
September 24, 2025
The book is great when it talks about things, concepts, etc. It is not so great when it just lists numbers. And it's not really the author's fault, it's just that audio is completely, absolutely the wrong format for this one.
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