Washoe County Library System

"An essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible--a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish. We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don't know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our...

"This tour of real-world mathematical disasters reveals the importance of math in everyday life. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the ways math trips us up"--

Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness,...

The creator of the "Math With Bad Drawings" blog explains how math works in everyday life and how it can be better understood, using lighthearted cartoon illustrations, jokes, and anecdotes that demystify essential concepts.

The uplifting, amazing true story—a New York Times bestseller!

This edition of Margot Lee Shetterly's acclaimed book is perfect for young readers. It's the powerful story of four African-American female mathematicians at NASA who helped achieve some of the greatest moments in our space program.

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female

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"Shape reveals the geometry underneath some of the most important scientific, political, and philosophical problems we face. Geometry asks: Where are things? Which things are near each other? How can you get from one thing to another thing? Those are important questions. Geometry doesn't just measure the world-it explains it. Shape shows us how"--

When the teacher tells her class that they can think of almost everything as a math problem, one student acquires a math anxiety which becomes a real curse.

"Many important exams use word problems to test math and logic skills. Each chapter covers a different topic: algebra, geometry, fractions, percents, decimals, and more, and questions progress in difficulty." --

The mathematics of ancient Egypt was fundamentally different from our math today. Contrary to what people might think, it wasn't a primitive forerunner of modern mathematics. This title provides an introduction to the intuitive and often-surprising art of ancient Egyptian math.

At a family reunion, the cousins line up in order of their ages to get their pictures taken, introducing the concept of numerical order.