A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper: Making Sense of the Numbers in the Headlines

‘This book should be mandatory reading for every journalist - as well as the readers, viewers and former tutors they supposedly serve’ New Scientist

From crime figures to health scares, election polls to stock market forecasts, numbers make the news all the time. But are they accurate?

John Allen Paulos, travels through the pages of an average newspaper, revealing how mathematics is at the heart of the articles we read every day - even horoscopes and the sports pages - and how often they mislead us. By understanding simple concepts such as probability, chaos theory and game theory, you’ll be able to see through faulty statistics, stock market forecasters and conspiracy theorists - and make the figures truly add up.