How Math Can Save Your Life: (And Make You Rich, Help You Find The One, and Avert Catastrophes)

260 Pages·2010·1.93 MB·English

by  James D. Stein

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How Math Can
Save Your Life
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How Math Can
Save Your Life
JAMES D. STEIN
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Copyright © 2010 by James D. Stein. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Stein, James D., date.
How math can save your life / James D. Stein.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-43775-9 (cloth)
1. Mathematics—Miscellanea. I. Title.
QA99.S735 2010
510—dc22
2009028776
Printed in the United States of America
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For Maxine and James, my fi rst arithmetic teachers
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C O N T E N T S
Preface xi
Introduction: What Math Can Do for You 1
1 The Most Valuable Chapter You Will Ever Read 5
Are service contracts for electronics and appliances just a scam? (cid:129)
How likely are you to win at roulette? (cid:129) Is it worth going to college?
2 How Math Can Help You Understand Sports Strategy 21
Why could Bart Simpson probably beat you at rock, paper, scissors? (cid:129)
What are “pure” and “mixed” strategies? (cid:129) Is a pass play or a run play
more likely to make a first down?
3 How Math Can Help Your Love Life 37
How do you know when he or she is “the one”? (cid:129) Whom should you ask
to the senior prom? (cid:129) Why are women reputed to be fickle while men are
steadfast?
4 How Math Can Help You Beat the Bookies 47
Why should your lottery ticket contain numbers greater than 31? (cid:129)
Can you overcome a negative expectation? (cid:129) When should you bluff
and when should you fold?
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viii Contents
5 How Math Can Improve Your Grades 65
Will guessing on a multiple-choice test get you a better score? (cid:129)
What test subject should you spend the most time studying for?
(cid:129) What subject should you major in?
6 How Math Can Extend Your Life Expectancy 77
How dangerous is it to speed? (cid:129) Why might your prescription show the
wrong dosage? (cid:129) Should you have a risky surgery or not?
7 How Math Can Help You Win Arguments 89
Was the bailout the only way to save the banks? (cid:129) Do you really have
logic on your side? (cid:129) What are the first arithmetic tables learned by
children on Spock’s home planet?
8 How Math Can Make You Rich 107
How can you actually make money off credit card companies? (cid:129) Will
refinancing your house actually save money? (cid:129) Is a hybrid car a better value?
9 How Math Can Help You Crunch the Numbers 125
How did statistics help prevent cholera in nineteenth-century London? (cid:129) Why
won’t Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf’s son be a tennis prodigy? (cid:129) Are you more
likely to meet someone over 7 feet tall or someone more than 100 years old?
10 How Math Can Fix the Economy 147
What is the “Tulip Index”? (cid:129) What doesn’t the mortgage banking industry
understand about negative numbers? (cid:129) What caused the stock market
crash of 1929?
11 Arithmetic for the Next Generation 165
How can you get your kids interested in math? (cid:129) What is the purpose of
arithmetic? (cid:129) How does Monopoly money make learning division easier?
12 How Math Can Help Avert Disasters 191
What caused the Challenger space shuttle crash? (cid:129) How could we have
prevented much of the damage from Hurricane Katrina? (cid:129) How can you
determine the possible cost of a disaster?
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