A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper

by John Allen Paulos (Author)

38 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0385482547

ISBN-10: 038548254X

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With the same user-friendly, quirky, and perceptive approach that made Innumeracy a bestseller, John Allen Paulos travels though the pages of the daily newspaper showing how math and numbers are a key element in many of the articles we read every day. From the Senate, SATs, and sex, to crime, celebrities, and cults, he takes stories that may not seem to involve mathematics at all and demonstrates how a lack of mathematical knowledge can hinder our understanding of them.

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Product Details

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Anchor (September 26, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 038548254X
ISBN-13: 978-0385482547
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #750,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #760 in Books > Textbooks > Communication & Journalism > Media Studies
- #1518 in Books > Textbooks > Science & Mathematics > Mathematics > Statistics
- #2115 in Books > Science & Math > Mathematics > Applied > Probability & Statistics

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Customer Reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

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2 star		11%
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57 of 60 people found the following review helpful

All the Quantification That's Fit to Print

By Donald Mitchell HALL OF FAMETOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on June 4, 2003

Format: Paperback

I found Professor Paulos's book, Innumeracy, to be a delightful expression of the key elements of mathematical ignorance that can be harmful, along with many new ways to see and think about the world around. You can imagine how much more pleased I was to find that A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper is an improvement over that valuable book. Every editor and newspaper writer should be required to read and apply this book before beginning their careers. Almost all those who love the news will find some new appreciation for how it could be better reported. Those who will benefit most are those with the least amount of background in math, logic and psychology. Although the subjects are often related to math, if you can multiple two numbers together using a calculator you will probably understand almost all of the sections. If you already know math well, this book will probably only provide amusement in isolated examples and you may not find it has enough new to really educate you. Most of the points are regularly treated in the mathematics literature.
In the introduction, Professor Paulos reveals a long and abiding love for newspapers. And he reads a lot of them. He subscribes to the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times, skims the Wall Street Journal and the Philadelphia Daily News, and occasionally looks at USA Today (he likes weather maps in color on occasion), the Washington Post, the suburban Ambler Gazette, the Bar Harbor Times, the local paper of any city he is in, and the tabloids.
This knowledge is reflected in the book's structure. There are four sections, reflecting the typical four section format of many weekday papers.Read more ›

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

An explanation of much of what is wrong

By Charles Ashbacher HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on November 22, 2000

Format: Paperback

Exploring once again the numerical ignorance of the American society,Paulos examines serious realities and the potentially harmful consequencesof the lack of a basic number sense in the general population. From supposed experts "explaining" the economy and the recent actions of the stock markets to sheer guesses given as hard facts, so much of our lives is affected by incorrect suppositions. It also points out how many jobs in our society are economically irrelevant in a very real sense.
Consider the section entitled "Darts Trounce the Pros: Luck and the Stock Market," where stocks were picked by throwing darts and the results compared to that of the "pros." Over a six-month period, the choices performed by the random process has a 42 percent gain as opposed to the Dow Jones rate of 8 percent and the experts rate of 2.2 percent. As time went on, the gains tended to move toward equality, but the reality is that those stocks picked by market watchers generally match the behavior of a random selection. In other words, money spent on "expert" stock advice is essentially wasted, with the obvious exception of insider trading.
Economic forecasts are also subjected to a similar investigation. In a convoluted world economy, where the behavior is essentially chaotic, it is impossible to predict what the future behavior will be. Recently, the executive and legislative branches of the U. S. government have been pounding each other over their separate long term predictions of the behavior of the U.S. economy. Such "knowledge" is being used in the attempt to balance the budget of the U.S. federal government.Read more ›

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful

Intriguing and entertaining - a perfect "commuting" book.

By bdemarzo@earthlink.net on April 16, 1998

Format: Paperback

Althought it took a few chapters to get in to the groove of the book, "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" quickly drew my interest. Although some topics are repetitive, and at times you wonder what the point is, in essence the author does a good job at teaching us how to understand what we read. Broken down in short (2-3 page) chapters, this book is ideal for people who need something to read for 5-10 minutes - although it is just as rewarding in a longer-term reading session. The use of complex math is limited, and he explains things well - although some may have to re-read his mathematical and logical points to fully understand them. Overall, for people intrigued with logic, mathematics, or understanding how people perceive the world, it's a worthy read.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

Useful but fragmented, like the newspaper

By David Gibson on February 13, 2001

Format: Paperback

This is a clever and useful book about the foibles in the media's use of statistics, with short primers on complexity, psychology, and probability theory -- and an occasional lapse into philosophizing that ends almost as soon as it begins. Ultimately this book, deliberately written so as to emulate the fragmented, unsustained format of the newspaper, suffers from this very cleverness: no issue is taken up long enough for Paulos to do it proper justice, very much like the newspaper (and television) reporting of which he is so rightly skeptical.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

Should be required reading for journalists

By Amazonian on September 7, 2000

Format: Paperback

Should be required reading for journalists, and, since it isn't, the rest of us should read it so we'll recognize how we are being misled by journalists' ignorance.
Using actual stories covered in the various sections of the newspaper, Paulos explains mathematical concepts that should have been considered by the reporter. He says that, in addition to the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How, reporters should ask how many, how does that quantity compare with other quantities, are we looking at the right categories and relationships, are the statistics derived from a random sample or a collection of anecdotes...
One example Paulos provides shows how readers can be misled by numbers, especially if the reporter uses the numbers provided by a biased source. In a story about contamination, suppose a pint of a toxic chemical were spilled in the ocean and the chemical becomes evenly dispersed around the globe. Seems like a minuscule amount of contamination, and not worth worrying about. But, if the ocean water were tested, it would show almost 6,000 molecules of that toxic chemical in a pint of water. Now, it looks like a reason to panic.
Although not an easy read, most of the math is simply and entertainingly presented, and occasional dull passages are short and easily skipped.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

It's a critical thinking book.

It's a great book. The book presents a critical thinking based on both math and sociology view.

Published 10 months ago by Jose A. Alvarez

Five Stars

A blast. Really and truly.

Published 12 months ago by J. Fogarty

Interesting for the Lay Person

This book is a collection of very short essays describing the use of mathematics in a number of public contexts. Read more

Published on March 20, 2013 by c2

A Mathematician Reads a Newspaper

The book was well kept and of high quality, it just ended up I didn't need it after all.Great products though.

Published on September 21, 2012 by Maria

An old but still good book

This book has been written before the Internet era. So the author talks about the newspaper and other ways to receive news, but no Internet. Read more

Published on September 15, 2012 by Cuello Felix

Paulos Thoughts on Innumeracy in the Media

"Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary a qualification for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write." H.G. Read more

Published on January 27, 2012 by J. Kimbrough

Must read!

This really opened my eyes to how the main stream media makes news seem more sensational than it is. It will change the way you see the world. Read more

Published on December 28, 2011 by Saul Goode

Foxy Numbers

Have read only a few pages as assigned to date- very good, so far.

As concerns vendor action, it was very good and book was received ahead of schedule and in very good... Read more

Published on September 24, 2010 by Harvey M. Fox

Interesting and instructive

A very well written book, both interesting and instructive. Full of common sense, the author provides a plethora of reports commonly found in almost any newspaper, and highlights... Read more

Published on May 12, 2009 by kychan

Underwhelming

Some interesting anecdotes don't save you from feeling a little cheated by this book which promises an entire mathematical world view but only delivers a few snippets.

Published on February 22, 2009 by TexasVC