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59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Barrow is tremendously interesting for the mathematically and scientifically minded, July 7, 2009
Hype rules the world. This book is promoted in a misleading way. There is nothing 'essential' about the one- hundred small math and science lessons Barrow gives us here. Ninety- nine percent of humanity will manage to get through their lives without knowing anything of what is written here.
On the other hand , for those who love Math, who care to understand the way the world works this book is a little treasure. Barrow is an extremely brilliant person and a very clear writer. He takes all kinds of problems here, and shows how mathematically we come to better understanding of them. Bridge- construction, choosing a card, demographics of the world, are among the subjects he tackles. I began to read this book and found it tremendously interesting. But again this is a work for those who like to understand latest developments in science and math. For them this should be a great read.
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33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not a great title, but a great book, August 27, 2009
Scientific American listed this book as "Also Notable," and the subtitle interested me, so I got it and read it. The title makes little sense -- I didn't find any essential things I didn't know that I didn't know. But I did find a lot about how math explains things in the real world. That I liked.
In the book John Barrow collects his thoughts on 100 topics, ranging from "Why Does the Other Queue [Barrow's British] Move Faster" to "How to Push a Car." Although the substance is rather similar to John Allen Paulos's A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, the style is quite different. In Barrow's book, each topic has a few pages each in an independent section. Paulos takes more of a chapter essay approach, with each chapter covering a broad topic and Paulos taking a rambling walk from beginning to end. Barrow writes well, and his approach works fine.
Some of the topics Barrow chooses are more interesting than others. I read them all, but did skim over some that did not quickly catch my interest. There are 100 of them, after all. For me, that was probably about 50 too many.
The main complaint I have about the book is that someone, perhaps the author or maybe an editor, decided that they had to convince the reader that each topic is important. They are not. These topics are interesting (to me, at least), but far from "essential." If you like math and physics, like me, you'll probably like the book. If you don't like math and physics, you probably won't like the book. It won't convert you.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Pocket Barrow" Get And Share With Friends, August 30, 2009
I've just finished John D. Barrow's "100 Essential Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know" and recommend it highly.
In some ways it's more accessible than two of his other books I've just read, "The Infinite Book" and "Cosmic Imagery".
True they have more discussion (Infinite) and pictures (Imagery) but "100 Essential" manages to present key concepts in 2 to 4 pages each AND to tie them to immediately understandable real life examples.
For example, if you had 100 people to choose from to hire, your best strategy is to interview 37 and rate and dismiss them, then hire the next person you interview who's as good or better than the highest in the first 37 (sounds strange doesn't it!).
Or: Why the fact that interest rates are non-zero is evidence for the lack of time travel to the past (wait til you read that one!).
Or: Global Village Stats
Or: The whole world in a sheet of A4 paper
True some of the 100 points are repeats of things in "Infinite" and "Imagery" - but not too many and the numbers of new topics more than make up for the occasional repeat.
Truly this is a "Pocket Barrow" worth getting and sharing with your friends when you need an evocative discussion topic or three.
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