Kit Yates – författare

A Waterstones Best Popular Science Book of 2023''Delightfully clear and vivid to read...A splendid book! Philip Pullman''Absolutely fascinating'' James O''Brien''An exceptional book - readable, funny and more needed than ever'' Dr Chris van Tulleken, bestselling author of Ultra-Processed People· Are you more likely to become a professional footballer if your surname is Ball?· How can you be one hundred per cent sure you will win a bet?· Why did so many Pompeiians stay put while Mount Vesuvius was erupting?· How do you prevent a nuclear war?Ever since the dawn of human civilisation, we have been trying to make predictions about what''s in store for us. We do this on a personal level, so that we can get on with our lives efficiently (should I hang my laundry out to dry, or will it rain?). But we also have to predict on a much larger scale, often for the good of our broader society (how can we spot economic downturns or prevent terrorist attacks?). For just as long, we have been getting it wrong. From religious oracles to weather forecasters, and from politicians to economists, we are subjected to poor predictions all the time. Our job is to separate the good from the bad. Unfortunately, the foibles of our own biology - the biases that ultimately make us human - can let us down when it comes to making rational inferences about the world around us. And that can have disastrous consequences.How to Expect the Unexpected will teach you how and why predictions go wrong, help you to spot phony forecasts and give you a better chance of getting your own predictions correct.

We all like to think we''re making decisions based on reality, but in fact, we''re almost always working from incomplete information. And when ''you don''t know what you don''t know'', it can be impossible to navigate successfully.In You Don''t Know What You''re Missing mathematician Kit Yates explores the blind spots, gaps in our knowledge and how we make sense of the world given we usually have an unfinished picture. From avoiding common traps and pitfalls to filling in the gaps without guessing, it shows us how to turn our misses into hits.

*SELECTED AS ONE OF THE SUNDAY TIMES SCIENCE BOOKS OF THE YEAR*

"This is an exquisitely interesting book. It''s a deeply serious one too and, for those like me who have little maths, it''s delightfully readable" - IAN MCEWAN

"An exciting new voice in the world of science communication" - MARCUS DU SAUTOY

"An extremely thoughtful, articulate and accessible insight into mathematics in the real world" - ALEX BELLOS

"Kit Yates is a brilliant explainer and storyteller" - STEVEN STROGATZ__________

Maths is the story of the world around us, and the wisdom it gives us can be the difference between success and disaster.

We are all doing maths all the time, from the way we communicate with each other to the way we travel, from how we work to how we relax. Many of us are aware of this. But few of us really appreciate the full power of maths - the extent to which its influence is not only in every office and every home, but also in every courtroom and hospital ward.

In this eye-opening and extraordinary book, Yates explores the true stories of life-changing events in which the application - or misapplication - of mathematics has played a critical role: patients crippled by faulty genes and entrepreneurs bankrupted by faulty algorithms; innocent victims of miscarriages of justice and the unwitting victims of software glitches. We follow stories of investors who have lost fortunes and parents who have lost children, all because of mathematical misunderstandings.

Along the way, Yates arms us with simple mathematical rules and tools that can help us make better decisions in our increasingly quantitative society. You will discover why it''s always sensible to question a statistic, often vital to ask for a second opinion and sometimes surprisingly handy to stick to the 37% rule...