How Pi Can Save Your Life: Using Math to Survive Plane Crashes, Zombie Attacks, Alien Encounters, and Other Improbable, Real-World Situations

Discover how you can guard a priceless painting in the Louvre, pilot a space shuttle back to Earth, and survive other ridiculous-yet-possible scenarios using the all-encompassing power of mathematical equations.

Whether you paid much attention in math class or not, the inescapable truth is that real life is full of equations. You use differentiation when driving from point A to B and apply basic geometry when you’re crossing the road between traffic, even if you don’t realize it. But what if you were plummeting to your death inside a plane with no engine and you needed to know what size parachute to make from your cabinmate’s sari in order to jump and survive? 

How Pi Can Save Your Life tackles some frankly ridiculous scenarios with essential, bullet-proof equations that you'll probably never apply in real life. But before you get into the life-saving mathematics, this book will start you off with the essential math that will be the key to taking on the wild scenarios later on in this book. Using only the power of equations, you will be able to:

• Communicate with an alien civilization
• Save your town from a zombie apocalypse
• Contain a major oil spill
• Excavate a fossil that could be a major scientific discovery
• Perform Hollywood stunts in a blockbuster action film
• And more!

How Pi Can Save Your Life will take your basic understanding of mathematical equations to the next level, teaching you that the real key to surviving in an unpredictable world is understanding the natural forces and relationships that rule everything we do.

Chris Waring studied for a degree in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, London before becoming a math teacher. Since then he has taught small children and Oxbridge candidates and everybody in between. He is the author of Maths in Bite-sized Chunks and From Zero to Infinity in 26 Centuries.