Geekspeak: Why Life + Mathematics = Happiness

Adult/High School—This collection of essays is a good choice for teens who suspect what geeks already know—that mathematics is interesting and, yes, even fun. The selections are geek lite, covering such questions as "How heavy is your house?" and "Which is more powerful—your brain or a PC?" The answers provided are short (typically four to eight pages); humorous; and, best of all for the mathematically challenged, easy to understand. Tattersall occasionally throws in an impressive-looking formula in a display of "gee-whiz" showmanship, but readers need not worry.

How big is your vocabulary?

How heavy is your house?

Do the dead outnumber the living?

What are the best words to use in a personal ad?

We humans are a curious species, prone to think, ruminate, reflect, cogitate, mull over, and philosophize. We long to explain away the world around us, to answer all those seeming unanswerables: Why are we here? Is there a God? Is there life after death? And, above all, how many houseflies does it take to pull a car?

A confirmed and superior geek, Dr. Graham Tattersall has rescued math from the prison of the classroom and put it to use in novel and unexpected ways to explain some oft-pondered mysteries of the world. Geekspeak is an essential tool that will help you exercise your brain and solve the unsolvable, make you sound intelligent so you can impress your friends, and enable you to better understand the fascinating world in which we live in ways never possible before.

Math has a new champion, and the geeks a new king.