How can we solve the national debt crisis? Should you or your child
take on a student loan? Is it safe to talk on a cell phone while
driving? Are there viable energy alternatives to fossil fuels? What
could you do with a billion dollars? Could simple policy changes reduce
political polarization? These questions may all seem very different,
but they share two things in common. First, they are all questions with
important implications for either personal success or our success as a
nation. Second, they all concern topics that we can fully understand
only with the aid of clear quantitative or mathematical thinking. In
other words, they are topics for which we need math for life--a kind of
math that looks quite different from most of the math that we learn in
school, but that is just as (and often more) important. In Math for
Life, award-winning author Jeffrey Bennett simply and clearly explains
the key ideas of quantitative reasoning and applies them to all the
above questions and many more. He also uses these questions to analyze
our current education system, identifying both shortfalls in the
teaching of mathematics and solutions for our educational future. No
matter what your own level of mathematical ability, and no matter
whether you approach the book as an educator, student, or interested
adult, you are sure to find something new and thought-provoking in Math
for Life.
