The Complete How to Figure It

The author of How to Lie with Statistics offers easy instructions for such everyday puzzles as when to get a second mortgage and how to budget for the week, with tips on figuring using a calculator or computer.

Huff, who wrote the classic How to Lie with Statistics, now draws his resources into a thick collection of math tips and tidbits. Not wanting to be relegated to "an obscure corner marked math," he offers How to Figure It as a self-help book, an "enabler." He delivers many practical ways to bring figures and measurements into the lives of those for whom math has always been a dirty word. About a quarter of the book is devoted to money, with chapters on interest and saving, investing, spending, and home loans. Another large chunk covers residences and features house planning, how to figure steps for building things, and an entire chapter focused on rafters and beams. Huff also includes chapters on automobiles, travel, outdoors, and how to do math in a hurry. With this book as guide, you can evaluate the warmth of a sleeping bag, analyze the need for pedestrian crossings, and rate an earthquake--all assisted by handy charts and tables. This makes an ideal browser on a rainy afternoon, and it is especially friendly to those who can't quite cope with calculators. Jennifer Henderson

The author of the math classic How To Lie with Statistics (1954) has since focused his publishing career more in the areas of home economics and home improvements. This background has strongly influenced the contents of his present book, which provides eclectic advice on topics ranging from sizing a wood stove to buying meat, from comparing retirement plans to designing a cantilevered deck. Library patrons would be more likely to look for this kind of information in other sources. An odd thing about the presentation is that Huff never uses mathematical symbols and equations. Instead, he writes out the equations. For example, the section on solving a quadratic equation starts out "Multiply four times the first number by the third number..." Also, readers will need to have a scientific calculator handy that can handle logarithms, trigonometric functions, and other fairly complicated calculations.?Amy Brunvand, Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.