Humble Pi

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Humble Pi written and read by Matt Parker.  What makes a bridge wobble when its not meant to? Billions of dollars   mysteriously vanish into thin air? A building rock when its resonant   frequency matches a gym class leaping to Snaps 1990 hit Ive 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 doesnt. 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 doesnt 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.