Tag: math

Alright, guys… I’m an absolute nerd. You know this; I know this. I found a book about math in the real world and how we may or may not use it correctly, and I had to read it. I couldn’t help myself. It also had no reason being as interesting as it was. The book was The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow.

The title refers to the mathematical principle of calculating the random path a drunk person would walk. (I told you this was going to be really nerdy from the start.) Part of my studies included learning some statistics, but even then, hearing some of the concepts in an everyday context had me answering questions incorrectly. The wording of math problems will always be confusing. Another interesting aspect was learning when many of the principles we take for granted came to be. Hilariously, it was from people trying to constantly win at gambling. It made statistics interesting, although I might be a bit biased because I watched shows about math and had the time of my life.

Well, lie is a really strong word for what I’m going to discuss. A better word would be to deceive with facts and logic. I recently read How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff. This book goes into all of the ways in which a glorified “statistic” can be used to sway and mislead the people who see it. With fun illustrations, we are taught how exactly looking at different axes and altering study design, you can get some really interesting conclusions, whether justly or not. At the end, we are at least taught who to dig deeper into what we are seeing to draw our own conclusions that may be different from the conclusions we are being led to.

One of the funny things about this book is how money works. Being that this book was written in 1954 and read by me in 2025, let’s just say that inflation has not hit these numbers. Having super “wealthy” Yale graduates making an annual salary of $25,000 or the outrage of the price of bread doubling to a single dollar was hilarious. If only the author knew and could update these numbers for the modern day. Hilarity aside, this book is a great way to learn how people may inadvertently lie to you, because they are 95 percent of the time*.

* Source: Because I said so…