Math With Bad Drawings By Ben Orlin

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· 1,071 ratings · 159 reviews

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Aug 06, 2020 Ben Orlin rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

I realized that I hadn't yet rated my own book, and that by giving it five stars, I could exert an infinitesimal upward pull on its rating. Propriety be damned! I know how averages work!

Also, though, I'm really proud of this strange blue thing.

Honestly, before writing it, I worried it wouldn't work. "The entirety of math" felt like way too big a topic to tackle. I mean, maybe it's doable if you're named Jordan Ellenberg. But my driver's license insists that I am not.

Somehow, though, it came toge

I realized that I hadn't yet rated my own book, and that by giving it five stars, I could exert an infinitesimal upward pull on its rating. Propriety be damned! I know how averages work!

Also, though, I'm really proud of this strange blue thing.

Somehow, though, it came together. The math is all pretty elementary. (I get a lot of wonderful emails from parents saying, "I bought the book for myself, but my 10- and 12-year-olds got their hands on it and won't stop reading.") But the connections and stories, I hope, keep things fresh and surprising, even for the most jaded PhD.

Apologies for the self-promotion. Even if the book falls short of your expectations, I thank you for giving it a shot, and I appreciate your forgiveness of my bad art.

(I really can't draw.)

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May 28, 2019 Athan Tolis rated it it was amazing

A Pixar movie of a book: the plot is for the kids; the jokes are for the adults.

With that said, the jokes are AWESOME, the little cartoons much better than the title suggests and the (ninth grade) math is explained so well I wish I had this book in ninth grade. Perhaps these days it's an eighth grade book, I don't know. (My kids are still too young.)

Also, rather embarrassingly, I LEARNED STUFF FROM HERE. No, I did not learn math. I learned stuff I ought to have figured out for myself but was too

A Pixar movie of a book: the plot is for the kids; the jokes are for the adults.

Also, rather embarrassingly, I LEARNED STUFF FROM HERE. No, I did not learn math. I learned stuff I ought to have figured out for myself but was too focused on my grades to ponder. Like, why elephants have thick legs: for the same reason the sky is black! I'm serious, it's the same reason and you can read it here…

Halfway through the book the author actually runs out of amazing things about the natural world and from there he takes you to the mathematics of Wall Street and the IRS, which I did not find as captivating, let us say. It all remains just as funny, though.

So this was a fun book to read. Probably an awesome gift for your friends' kids. If the little ones don't read it, the adults will at least get some good laughs out of it.

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Jun 07, 2020 Ben Orlin rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author) · review of another edition

This translation is better than the original.

I can say this with confidence because I wrote the original.

Just one example: in English, I used the pedestrian and uninteresting word "hitter" to refer to a baseball player. In Dutch, this word appears instead as the vastly superior SLAGMAN.

Five stars, easy.

(NOTE: I apologize for writing this review in English. If someone were to translate this to Dutch, I'm sure it would become a better review as well.)

This translation is better than the original.

I can say this with confidence because I wrote the original.

Just one example: in English, I used the pedestrian and uninteresting word "hitter" to refer to a baseball player. In Dutch, this word appears instead as the vastly superior SLAGMAN.

Five stars, easy.

(NOTE: I apologize for writing this review in English. If someone were to translate this to Dutch, I'm sure it would become a better review as well.)

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Aug 18, 2021 Ed Erwin rated it really liked it

I didn't think the drawings were bad at all. But then I got to the drawing of a T-Rex. The worst, though, was his portrait of economist Léon Walras. It looks nothing like him! And, I hope, not like any real human.

Apart from those, the drawings were fun and the text was fun. Of course, I already know all the math in this book, or think I do, and I think math is fun, especially when someone else is doing it, so your mileage may vary. The text is snarky, but not too much so.

The author is a teacher

The author is a teacher in the American school system. To me that would be a hellish job, but he seems to enjoy it, and his pleasure in teaching things comes through on the page.

The topics sort of go all-over-the-place near the end, but that is one of my few complaints.

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Dec 24, 2018 Kam Yung Soh rated it really liked it

An entertaining book on mathematics with, of course, bad drawings (but illuminating ones) that covers several sections of mathematics. Separated into different parts, it can be read at a sitting but I found that to be an overwhelming read, as it is thick with information that needs time to digest. Digging into its sections at leisure would probably be a better way to digest the entertaining and interesting mathematical information provided in the book.

Part One is on how to think like a mathemat

Part One is on how to think like a mathematician and looks at mathematics from various viewpoints: the teacher, the student, mathematicians and scientists. Each has a different view on mathematics and probably accounts for why some people learning mathematics have a hard time understanding the relevance of mathematics to their lives until much later.

Part Two looks at geometry and via examples like the design of girders, why the A4 paper has irrational dimensions, the geometric scaling laws and the design of many sided dices, shows how geometry plays a part in our daily lives. He closes with an entertaining example about a fictional Star Wars Imperial Engineer grumbling over the various trade-offs required to design the Death Star to Gran Moff Tarkin's specifications.

Part Three looks at probability and via various examples like the lottery, genetics, telling the odds, the costs of buying (and not buying) certain types of insurance and misunderstanding the odds that an event are independent of other events (the pricing of CDOs [collaterized debt obligations]), show how probabilities can mislead people in thinking that the odds of certain events happening are actually lower or higher than people imagine them to be.

Part Four is related to Part Three but looks at statistics. It starts with a look at the terms used by statistics (like mean, median, etc.) and show how each of them can lead or mislead people into understanding statistical results if you don't know what they show (and don't show). The next part on baseball statistics may bore or interest you and covers the history of the various baseball statistics. Next, the P-value used in scientific statistics is covered and shows how and why it can mislead scientists into believing that an experimental finding is 'statistically significant' when it is not. Going closer to the authors field (teaching), he looks at the measures used to score schools and asks whether such scores are used as a window on a school's performance or as a score to show how good or bad a school is, both of which produce different outcomes for the schools concerned. The final section of statistics looks at the interesting field of determining authorship based on the statistics of words and sentences used by various authors over time.

Part Five is a bit of mixture with the theme of how small changes can have large effects. He first looks at the misunderstanding over marginal tax rates and tax brackets and how they affect your actual income and tax rates. The issue of voting, voting boundaries and gerrymandering is then looked at, followed by chaos theory and a look at fractal dimensions.

All in all, an interesting book that is best read part by part as and when you feel a need to learn or refresh your memory of some aspects of mathematics covered in the book.

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Jan 19, 2019 Svitlana Nova rated it really liked it

I bought this book for a teenager in my life and decided to read it first to test out the content.

I liked the basic premise of the book: explaining with the help of very basic mathematics and rudimentary but on-point drawings the real world topics/scenarios. You remember the common adage: "I never needed math after I finished school?" - The author begs to differ.

I did find the math too simplified - I personally felt that I could have stomached a lot more advanced math. But I don't believe I was

I bought this book for a teenager in my life and decided to read it first to test out the content.

I did find the math too simplified - I personally felt that I could have stomached a lot more advanced math. But I don't believe I was the target audience for this book -- 12-18-year-olds - the ages of the students the author has taught to in the past would have been a better fit.

Overall I love the premise and I hope the author turns this into a series! And in the meantime - off to his blog I am!

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Feb 16, 2020 Slkoh rated it it was amazing

Loved the humor and insights. I'm gonna read thencalculus book.

Mar 26, 2019 Gavin rated it really liked it

Fables and math have a lot in common. Both come from dusty, moth-eaten books. Both are inflicted upon children. And both seek to explain the world through radical acts of simplification. If you want to reckon with the full idiosyncrasy and complexity of life, look elsewhere... math makers are more like cartoonists.

Taken as a collection of words, literature is a dataset of extraordinary richness. Then again, take as a collection of words, literature is no longer literature. Statistics wor

Fables and math have a lot in common. Both come from dusty, moth-eaten books. Both are inflicted upon children. And both seek to explain the world through radical acts of simplification. If you want to reckon with the full idiosyncrasy and complexity of life, look elsewhere... math makers are more like cartoonists.

Taken as a collection of words, literature is a dataset of extraordinary richness. Then again, take as a collection of words, literature is no longer literature. Statistics works by eliminating context. Their search for insight begins with the annihilation of meaning... Is there peace to be made between the rich contextuality of literature and the cold analytical power of stats?

So wise. You'd think a high-school maths teacher who draws intentionally badly wouldn't have much to say about the nature of reason, the ecstasy and despair of learning and abstraction, the beauty of inevitability. But here we are - this only looks like a children's book. For better or worse there's a pun or goofy self-deprecating joke every couple sentences. (The greatest of these: " CHAPTER 21: THE TIME HAS COME, LEON WALRAS SAID, TO TALK OF MANY THINGS")

Everything in it is elementary, but using these simple examples Orlin covers a dozen of the most important intellectual developments: constraint theory of beauty, "unreasonable effectiveness", probability theory (via fascinating government lotteries with positive expected value!), the Great Recession from the quants' perspective, the replication crisis, the marginalist revolution... And he disses school mathematics often enough to charm anyone. I learned plenty (about bridges, polar animals, sabermetrics, about the inevitability and brilliance of ISO 216, and so on).

Dissing folks for their probabilistic failures is a bit like calling them bad at flying, or subpar at swallowing oceans, or insufficiently fireproof. No big deal, right? I mean, does probability ever come up in the real world? It's not like we spend our lives clawing for intellectual tools that might offer the slightest stability in the swirling miasma of uncertainty that surrounds us every waking moment...

He goes a bit wrong in his probability / lottery chapter - he spreads the rational choice theory (the idea that lotteries are good because it buys you nice daydreams) without reflecting that human attention and gumption are finite, and that the daydream thus robs people of a mildly but actually better future. Surprisingly, he also disses expected value (first-order users of which are "educated fools") with the trivial fact that infinities are strange: "Perhaps the ultimate repudiation of expected value is the abstract possibility of tickets [promising infinite payoff but only asymptotically]". Luckily decision theory is larger than one rule, and nowhere says that you must ignore your budget (+ leverage) and blindly obey the result of one multiplication... He also uses the false positive / false negative framework, which is usually misleading for squishy things like medicine and social science.

(He also thinks Han Solo is valid.)

While I am bitter that my own early maths education was so mindless, I'm amazed and glad that a few kids out there get to learn from someone like this.

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First off, the title is not quite accurate. There is, in fact, a good deal of math (although not that many equations), but the drawings aren't really "bad". They are, to be sure, stick-drawings or the equivalent. But, given that their purpose is to make more clear the math which is being discussed, and given that they succeed at doing that rather well, I think they are more "crude but effective" than "bad". "Math With Crude Drawings" might not have been as snappy a title.

I may not have been the

I may not have been the right audience for this book, as I already knew nearly all of the math discussed. It was, as far as I can tell, an easily understandable treatment of it all, but probably someone who does not already know most of the math should judge that. Maybe I could have my daughter read it this summer. "A math book for my summer? Papa, you shouldn't have! No really, you shouldn't have."

The author's basic point is that existing math education (primary and secondary in particular) is more or less like mistaking scales for music, or mistaking syntax for programming, or mistaking grammar for literature. Math, he believes, should be more like puzzle solving, and less like rote drudgery; something challenging but fun. It is a common refrain from those who love math, and I'm not exactly sure why we have not as a society managed to come up with a better curriculum, especially given the ubiquity of computing devices. Every smartphone can do multiplication for you, but it cannot do higher level thinking for you, and that is exactly what is missing from the current public school standard. Certainly it takes some cleverness to teach math in a non-boring way, but not if the curriculum is already developed by someone else who was clever, and you would think it would have happened by now.

It may be that the problem is, good clever discussions of math happen in books like this, not in textbooks. What would happen if we made textbooks like we make open source software, with a working prototype developed by one author, and then many different authors helping to incrementally improve the curriculum until it was funny and clear and engaging from start to finish? I fear, we will never find out. The way we pay for textbooks, and authorial work generally, is not set up to create ever-better textbooks. So here we are, several centuries after we started offering math education to most children in the developed world, still stuck with textbooks that are, shall we say, not inspiring.

It is a depressing state of affairs. But, you know what isn't depressing? This book.

It's funny, it's light-hearted, it's informative, it's a page-turner. It's full of math (and crude but effective drawings). Enjoy!

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If you like maths, then you will love this book and if you don't like maths, then probably you will start liking maths because of this book. I have been reading Ben's blog posts (which also have similar stick-figure drawings) since a few years and I finally decided to read this book. One is lucky to have teachers like him who can inspire not just about the subject but about learning in general!

The book covers a variety of aspects of maths as well as "real-world" scenarios where maths is require

The book covers a variety of aspects of maths as well as "real-world" scenarios where maths is required. There are sections on maths and mathematicians (it's my favourite section), geometry (with many cool use-cases!), probability, statistics and more.

The writing style is simple and easy to understand, not like the usual math books! Also, it's filled with wit and humour. Mostly people cry about maths but I guess this is one of those rare books which makes people laugh! And then there are these hand-drawn illustrations of stick-figures (they are so expressive!) which make the topic fun and also drill down the key points!

A couple of my favourite quotes for this book are: "To do good work, you've first got to engage with nitty-gritty details. Then, to do great work, you've got to move beyond them." and "Creativity is what happens when a mind encounters an obstacle. It's the human process of finding a way through, over, around, or beneath. No obstacle, no creativity."

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As an electrical engineer with a deep love of statistics, I always enjoy reading popular books on mathematics. I particularly love writers that can "infect" the reader with the same joy they find in using basic math principles to make better decisions or to enhance their life (particularly by not being fodder to scams, disinformation, and whatever's in vogue). Mr. Orlin writes just such a book. The writing is energetic, with highly pertinent examples. I felt like he wrote with my worldview.... w As an electrical engineer with a deep love of statistics, I always enjoy reading popular books on mathematics. I particularly love writers that can "infect" the reader with the same joy they find in using basic math principles to make better decisions or to enhance their life (particularly by not being fodder to scams, disinformation, and whatever's in vogue). Mr. Orlin writes just such a book. The writing is energetic, with highly pertinent examples. I felt like he wrote with my worldview.... which, of course, predisposes me to give this book a great review - haha. My husband also enjoyed it greatly, and he is not an engineer. It is intended for the curious reader, and no background in math is needed at all. ...more

Aug 27, 2020 Heather rated it it was amazing

Definitely want to add this one to our personal library for homeschool supplementing, best for probably middle school on up. Math can be such a hard subject to understand the practical life applications for some of the nuances of the field. Orlin covers the connections of math to science and history, to statistics, Star Wars, and a variety of other topics told in an engaging way with entertaining "bad drawings." Definitely want to add this one to our personal library for homeschool supplementing, best for probably middle school on up. Math can be such a hard subject to understand the practical life applications for some of the nuances of the field. Orlin covers the connections of math to science and history, to statistics, Star Wars, and a variety of other topics told in an engaging way with entertaining "bad drawings." ...more

Apr 12, 2019 Lthmath rated it really liked it

It took me a little longer to finish this, but it was not the book's falt at all. The book is very easy to read, you can also read the sections in any order you like. From the first pages I found it quite funny and I never laughed so bad, while reading math books. The author has a great way of making fun of situations, math concepts and society. Moreover, he uses simple vocabulary and all of the mathematical concepts used in the book are explained thoroughly.

In addition to the funny stick man d

In addition to the funny stick man drawings, all of the other diagrams, charts and graphs are well done and used to explain different situations and examples. He uses all of his diagrams/drawings in a unique and funny way.

Also, all of the examples used in the book are very valuable at understanding mathematical concepts. The only issue I had from time to time was that most of the examples are about USA. Being from outside USA, I found it a little annoying by the end of the book, but I appreciate the usefulness they have in explaining some mathematical concepts.

Moreover, I want to mention the end notes. I am always very picky with them when it comes to math books because they are important in the process of understanding a notion. This book has really good end notes and I recommend you check them at the same time as reading the chapters.

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Nov 11, 2018 Donald Hardy rated it it was amazing

Fun book. Sometimes funny drawings, frequently helpful drawings. The book has taught me to use my underdeveloped and perhaps non-existent artistic talent to draw or sketch possible thought pictures to visualize math problems, solutions, and procedures.

"If you want to reckon with the full idiosyncrasy and complexity of life, look elsewhere. Ask a biologist, or a painter of photorealistic landscapes, or someone who files their own taxes. Fable tellers and math makers are more like cartoonists. By exaggerating a few features and neglecting all the rest, they help explain why our world is the way it is." -Ben Orlin

I have seen researchers exaggerating, neglecting, assuming, simplifying, and complicating matters as they want. As a Ph.D. student, I

I have seen researchers exaggerating, neglecting, assuming, simplifying, and complicating matters as they want. As a Ph.D. student, I am always bothered by these practices. This book somehow helped me make peace with these practices. This was something that I did not expect from this book.

Ben Orlin does a great job telling stories about math in the real-life scenario but fails to drive home the importance of math. I read this book because the title and the cover seemed creative. The introduction sets an expectation that it will motivate high school students to pursue and study math. I expected it to give insights into why and how math is useful in adult life and why kids should study it. But the book ended up being some random stories of math. No doubt I enjoyed the bad drawings and the stories: how the triangle is a special shape, why A4 paper is √2 ratio, etc. But I did not quite see the book achieving its purpose.

Some quotes:

"To do good work, you've first got to engage with nitty-gritty details. Then, to do great work, you've got to move beyond them."

"A statistic is an imperfect witness. It tells the truth, but never the whole truth."

"It is a funny paradox of design: utility breeds beauty. There is elegance in efficiency, a visual pleasure in things that just barely work."

"The closer you look, the longer the coastline becomes—in theory, forever."

"Chaos is complexity all the way down, never pixelating, never terminating, never resolving."

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This is an entertaining and very readable walk through some interesting (and in some cases profound) areas of math. It begins with basic ideas from geometry (and its impact on architecture) and moves on to probability (with links to gambling, insurance, and the economy - including a fascinating discussion about the financial crash of 2008 and the dangers of correlated outcomes) and then statistics (including baseball/"Moneyball", p-hacking in scientific studies, school rankings, and stylometrics This is an entertaining and very readable walk through some interesting (and in some cases profound) areas of math. It begins with basic ideas from geometry (and its impact on architecture) and moves on to probability (with links to gambling, insurance, and the economy - including a fascinating discussion about the financial crash of 2008 and the dangers of correlated outcomes) and then statistics (including baseball/"Moneyball", p-hacking in scientific studies, school rankings, and stylometrics). The book concludes with an extremely useful discussion of how progressive tax brackets work (all taxpayers would benefit from understanding this) and a somewhat deflating discussion of the process by which the U.S. handles its elections (allocates electoral votes) - deflating because the author makes a great case for the drawbacks of our current system and the obstacles that keep states from fixing it. Each chapter is a digestible and standalone package of ideas, so you can dip in and out if you like. And as promised by the title, each one is amply illustrated with bad drawings. :) ...more

My math professor son gave me this book for Christmas. He met the author and also thought I would enjoy it. I read a few scenarios every few days and I liked learning and reinforcing some math from past years with the stories and drawings. I read about the meaning of math, what a good versus great mathematician does, the basics of lottery play, and many other math concepts. I think my favorite chapter was early in the book, "The Square-Cube Fables." Here I could really relate to why big pans mak My math professor son gave me this book for Christmas. He met the author and also thought I would enjoy it. I read a few scenarios every few days and I liked learning and reinforcing some math from past years with the stories and drawings. I read about the meaning of math, what a good versus great mathematician does, the basics of lottery play, and many other math concepts. I think my favorite chapter was early in the book, "The Square-Cube Fables." Here I could really relate to why big pans make better brownies!!!! Thanks to the author for making math fun for me and can't wait to share my new found understanding of some math when I connect with my son. He also does an amazing job of using diagrams and stories to talk about his research and work. ...more

Apr 21, 2021 bup rated it really liked it

I sought this out because the title made me laugh, and 14 seconds of research made it sound entertaining and educational.

And it is. Both of those. My one nitpick is that it doesn't seem to cohese; there's no gestalt takeaway.

Still, it's a quick read about a lot of interesting topics. Would recommend.

P.S. For me, the most interesting (depressing) thing was the explanation for how much the 5%/2-standard-deviation threshold standard fails science, and the various reasons why many (MANY) more of pub

I sought this out because the title made me laugh, and 14 seconds of research made it sound entertaining and educational.

And it is. Both of those. My one nitpick is that it doesn't seem to cohese; there's no gestalt takeaway.

Still, it's a quick read about a lot of interesting topics. Would recommend.

P.S. For me, the most interesting (depressing) thing was the explanation for how much the 5%/2-standard-deviation threshold standard fails science, and the various reasons why many (MANY) more of published studies with significant results aren't reproducible. It's not 5% of them - false positive outnumber the 'real' positives.

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Aug 20, 2019 Doug rated it really liked it

Look, I've been reading Ben's blog for years AND I teach high school math, so I'm a super biased reviewer. But I really enjoyed this and I think you (non-blog reading, high school math teaching person (or not?)) will enjoy it too. Nothing in this gets too deep into the weeds and the topics are broad-ranging enough that you get some insight into a lot of different areas where mathematics plays into our everyday lives. Plus there are bad drawings! Nothing says education like stick figures! (No, re Look, I've been reading Ben's blog for years AND I teach high school math, so I'm a super biased reviewer. But I really enjoyed this and I think you (non-blog reading, high school math teaching person (or not?)) will enjoy it too. Nothing in this gets too deep into the weeds and the topics are broad-ranging enough that you get some insight into a lot of different areas where mathematics plays into our everyday lives. Plus there are bad drawings! Nothing says education like stick figures! (No, really.) ...more

<3. So many instructional ideas from this, laughed out loud MANY times and just generally appreciated how lucid Ben makes these mathematical ideas.

Dec 05, 2019 Frank Roberts rated it it was amazing

Entertaining and educational. Highly recommended for the Probability and Statistics sections especially.

Jul 03, 2019 Jeff Lochhead rated it really liked it

Probably more like a 3.5 stars, but good nonetheless. Glad I choose this one for my annual summer math book read. Covered a number of topics, of which, I was able to indirectly use during a summer school class I was teaching. Wish more depth would have been given topics at end of book. Would definitely read another by Orlin.

Oct 30, 2018 Carissa rated it it was amazing

You know when you read a really good math book that's hard to put it down? No? You didn't even know those kind of math books existed? Oh but they do! Sure, you'll need at least a little interest in mathematical theory, and definitely a sense of humor, to enjoy this book, but that's all. There is no finding x, figuring out graphs, or wondering why Little Betty is buying 204 watermelons and only giving away 5. It's very much worth a read, often absolutely hilarious, and easily one of my top reads You know when you read a really good math book that's hard to put it down? No? You didn't even know those kind of math books existed? Oh but they do! Sure, you'll need at least a little interest in mathematical theory, and definitely a sense of humor, to enjoy this book, but that's all. There is no finding x, figuring out graphs, or wondering why Little Betty is buying 204 watermelons and only giving away 5. It's very much worth a read, often absolutely hilarious, and easily one of my top reads of this year. ...more

Dec 31, 2018 Pete rated it it was amazing

An utterly fabulous read - highly recommended.

This is a book of humor, insight and wry observations not to mention bad mathematical drawings. For those reasons and more it is an easy recommendations.

Who should read it? Everyone. Why? This is a book that opens up slowly taking on gradually more complex topics. What makes it so enjoyable are the real world observations and applications of the mathematics explained.

In many ways no math is required to appreciate this book, the humor and observatio

An utterly fabulous read - highly recommended.

This is a book of humor, insight and wry observations not to mention bad mathematical drawings. For those reasons and more it is an easy recommendations.

In many ways no math is required to appreciate this book, the humor and observations as to the application and novelty of the mathematics explained make for a fun and thoughtful read.

Added to my list of books to share as a present.

In summary, I enjoyed reading it.

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Jan 24, 2020 Zach rated it it was amazing

It's a talented author that can make you say "OK, one last chapter, and then bed" while reading a math book. It's a talented author that can make you say "OK, one last chapter, and then bed" while reading a math book. ...more

Feb 28, 2019 Kate rated it really liked it

I loved the first third of this book. In fact, as a I flip through the table of contents to write this review, I would consider rereading the first 119 pages. I think my favorite bit was the explanation of A4 paper.

However, the final two thirds of the book were devoted to favorite brother and sister subjects of every popular mathematics writer, Probability and Statistics. Is Ben Orlin clever and funny? Yes. Did I laugh at his insurance jokes? Yes. Did I find his explanation of the financial crisis enlightening? Sort of. I'm getting kind of tired of explanations of the financial crisis. And rehashes of Moneyball. And complaints about school rankings. And though I have never read about statistical analysis of literature before, it still felt old and boring.

I didn't find Orlin's explanations strong enough for an individual with no background in mathematics. I found his subject matter dull and overdone for those of us who do have math background. Where's number theory? Abstract Algebra? Topology? All the stuff for those of who never made it beyond multi-variable calculus (but did make it that far?) (I preferred Eugenia Chen's efforts.)

I have one big "but", and this is garnering Orlin a fourth star from me. The drawings on the inside of the front and back cover are hilarious!!! I love them. Keep up with the funny drawings, Mr. Orlin!

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Apr 28, 2019 Chris Jaffe rated it really liked it

This is entertaining book on math - now there's a sentence I'd never thought I'd use.

Orlin covers lots of ground on math with his bad drawings and easygoing writing style. There are many parts that are interesting and well-done. The chapter on triangles gave me an appreciation for that geometric form - and an awareness of why they're used in construction. My favorite part is when he got a bit philosophical in discussing the differences between math & science and how they view each other. There's another good section on using numbers as a window vs. as a scoreboard (are you trying to see a picture about something, or are you using it to judge that thing?) Other, parts, however, are a bit pro forma.

The main issue I have with the book - and the reason its "only" four stars - is that while it covers a lot of ground, it also appears to ignore even more ground. Don't approach this as an entertaining textbook. It's not that at all. It's Orlin looking at a bunch of various matters picked because those are the ones he felt like picking. The chapters are organized into sections, but there really doesn't seem to be much structure to what Orlin's writing (and drawing) about.

Still a very nice book, but a scattered nice book.

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Jun 19, 2019 Jessica rated it it was amazing

I first saw this book at a Barnes and Noble while browsing the science section. The cover demanded that i find a cozy chair and sit down with it so i did. I opened it up to a random page and immediately started laughing. I wonder what people thought as they saw me laughing at a book that is clearly marked "MATH" on the cover.

My favorite chapter is "The 10 people you meet in line for the lottery". At every turn of the page I encountered new stick figures and most of them i know personally. (OK i

My favorite chapter is "The 10 people you meet in line for the lottery". At every turn of the page I encountered new stick figures and most of them i know personally. (OK i am one or two of them when the situation warrants).

I struggled a little with the statistics section but that's just because i have always felt statistics to be a bit tiring. Being an accountant myself, i can make numbers say lots of different things. So i understand that the power to make numbers say whatever you want them to say can be enticing. For that reason, i've always been weary of statistics. Still, its an entertaining chapter that highlights my very problem with statistics and presents the case for it anyway!

"Bracketology" is a great chapter. The opening comic is hilarious.

In short, if you like math, or even if you don't, read this book. Its fun for the whole family.

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Oct 13, 2018 Bookworm rated it it was ok

Placed this into my library queue on a whim after spotting it somewhere on social media. Math's never been my strong suit so from the cover it seemed like it might be one of those things that might make the subject a little less painful for someone who really struggled with it while in school. The idea was to use drawings to explain a lot of common questions: when will I ever use this? How is it applicable in real life? Why is it so hard to learn?

Perhaps I wasn't in the mood or right frame of mi

Perhaps I wasn't in the mood or right frame of mind for this because I didn't find the book interesting at all. It was very difficult for me to get into and it really did not hold my interest in any way. It seemed like it may have been a lot more relevant while I was in school and perhaps it's also something that I'm not really ready for: I haven't used a lot of (any?) math that was more advanced than basic stuff (that can easily be done via a calculator) in quite awhile and haven't needed to for years.

It seems other people really liked it so maybe it was just me. For a student struggling with it, though, I could see the appeal. Maybe I'll return to it someday.

Otherwise, I borrowed this from the library and that was best.

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