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Why Do Buses Come in Threes?: The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life
by Rob Eastaway, Jeremy Wyndham
Product Group: Book
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (1999-03-29)
ISBN: 0471347566
EAN: 9780471347569
Dewy Decimal #: 510
Hardcover: 176 pages
SKU: H6112
Condition: Very Good
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Why is it better to buy a lottery ticket on a Friday? Is bad luck just chance, or can it be explained? Is it possible to win every time without cheating? And can math greatly increase your odds of getting a date and even falling in love? If you've had the sneaking suspicion ever since the third grade that math is conspiring against you—you're right. Math and the laws of probability are constantly at work in our lives, affecting everything we do from getting a date to catching a bus. Why Do Buses Come in Threes? is a delightfully entertaining ride for anyone wanting to remind themselves—or discover for the first time—that math is relevant to almost everything we do. Buses that bunch, identical potato chips, and slicing a cake evenly for an odd number of guests all have their links to intriguing mathematical problems. With great humor and a genuine love for the subject, the authors present the solutions to such conundrums as how fast one should run in the rain to keep dry and who was the greatest sportsman statistically. Discover the mathematical explanations for the strange coincidence of two Presidents dying on July 4, the uncanny "accuracy" of horoscopes, the number of petals on a flower and seeds in an apple, and other not-so-coincidental coincidences. Eastaway and Wyndham also reveal how television ratings work, which numbers are more likely to be big winners in the lottery, and why bad things, just like buses, always seem to happen in threes. It's a fascinating journey through the logic of life where Newton's laws explain bar fights, exploding rabbit populations, and why showers always run either too hot or too cold. For the kids, the authors have devoted an entire chapter to tricks that entertain, teach, and baffle children with the magical properties of numbers. So climb aboard, take a ride, and discover the hidden mathematical code to some of life's greatest (and most irritating) questions. You may know 2+2, but do you know . . . Which part of a moving train is always stationary, and which part is always traveling in the reverse direction to the train itself? How understanding Pascal's triangle can keep you from being overcharged in a New York taxicab? What popular lunch food has its own theorem? Why lights are always red when you're in a hurry? Why math, not the idiot in front of you, is to blame for your being stuck in long lines at the supermarket? Math: It isn't all in your head . . .
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Amazon.com Review
If you've ever bought a Lotto ticket and wondered about your bad luck afterward, you've had to deal with math. From timing to probability, it pervades our every waking moment, and even the most crippling math phobia can't make it go away. Writers Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham throw up their hands in defeat and give in to the amusing, interesting, and practical aspects of math in Why Do Buses Come in Threes? Taking their title from the oft-noticed phenomenon of clumping in mass transit, they explain in clear, commonsense language why this must be so. At the end of their description, you might be left with the uneasy sense that you just learned some math, and on quick review, you'll find that the authors have in fact snuck some in under your radar. In chapter after chapter, Eastaway and Wyndham successfully navigate statistics, codes, coincidences, and many other parts of our lives, peeling away the surface to show what's really going on to make things so weird and wonderful. Diagrams and drawings help to make their points even clearer, and there are almost never any scary formulas to frighten the timid. If you've been waiting your whole life to learn the "Ham Sandwich Theorem," or just want to put some old fears to rest, Why Do Buses Come in Threes? is the solution. --Rob Lightner
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Customer Reviews
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Buses actually come in pairs...
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-11-12
Entertaining examples of probability, statistics, trigonometry. If you are interested in problemsolving and critical thinking skills, this book is a gem!
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For the rational being
Rating  (5)
Date: 2007-02-18
0 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Things aren't always what people just "know" they are. A little math and a little intelligence will separate you from the rest of the world.
If you believe in old wives tales, this book will open your eyes. (Sorry Mom.)
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Amazing little book on mathematics of daily life. Superb!
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-11-11
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This lovely little book never fails to bring revelation as I read through the chapters. Praise should be given to the authors, not only for their insights in revealing the mathematical basis of ordinary issues, but also for their enthusiasm in promoting popular science through this successful work.
Interesting examples from daily life capable of arousing curiosity were utilized to illustrate otherwise "serious" mathematical concepts: temperature of shower water (negative-feedback), dating (game-theory), "wonder numbers" in nature (golden ratio), bad luck (probability)......etc. Concepts were well-elaborated, conducted in a comprehensive and attractive, but never shallow or over-simplified, manner. The authors were just good at alluring readers to think and explore things more than "skin-deep", beyond what they seems like at surface. The writing style is attractive and humorous.
This book is of immense value in enhancing reasoning, critical thinking and, most importantly, appreciation of life itself. Highly recommended.
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Fascinating book
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-07-25
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
While I was originally turned off by the title, which not only suggested an extremely narrow subject matter, but seemed pointed toward a younger audience (I have degrees in computer science and mathematics), I ended up reading it with great enthusiasm, usually unable to put it down for two or more hours at a time. The authors have searched far and wide for mathematical 'optical-illusions' that occur in a very broad range of everyday matters.
To put the sheer amount of subject matter crammed into this modestly sized book into perspective, the question posed by the title takes only a page or a page and a half of the book. The author(s) go from topic to topic quite rapidly, insuring that readers will never get bored. If you want indepth information, you're free to go elsewhere, but in few other places will you find so many amusing and surprising mathematical tidbits in one place.
This is a book that belongs on every elementary- and undergraduate-level instructor's bookshelf. What I remember most about my early education and what prompted me to go further in mathematics were the unintuitive ideas such as are presented in this book so well and so entertainingly. The 'birthday phenomenon' is a good example of a completely unintuitive phenomenon described by Eastaway; take a class of more than a mere 23 students, and there is a greater than 50% chance two of them will have the same birthday. How can this be so? There are 365 days in a year! There is a simple, easily understandable explanation to this. (And to illustrate my earlier point, this was honestly the only specific thing I remembered my professor explaining from my intro to statistics class).
There are probably a hundred or so examples of such mysteries presented in this book. I sincerely believe readers at all levels will enjoy the content as much as I did.
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An excellent reminder about why maths is fun
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-03-28
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
The two messages of this book are that mathematics is important to everyday life, and that it's fun. Like the earlier books of Martin Gardener, this book aims to make mathematics relevant and accessible, but with a British rather than American slant.
Have you ever wondered why flowers often have five petals, how bookies' odds work, how you always end up in the slowest queue, or, indeed, why buses come in threes? If so, then this is the book for you.
In the course of a humorous, chatty discourse on the mysteries of life the authors introduce a number of branches of mathematics, including probability, topology, statistics and queuing theory, to name just a few.
To aid casual readers or those who've previously found the subject forbidding the maths is kept at a fairly simple level. However there's still enough detail to be useful in other applications. I used this book as a reminder when trying to solve a problem related to software performance, and others who don't exercise their maths every day might also find it a useful memory jogger.
Whether as an introduction if you've never enjoyed maths before, or a reminder if you have, I thoroughly recommend this book. I can also recommend the companion volume "How Long is a Piece of String?"
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