Humble Pi

by Matt Parker

I watch math videos on YouTube for fun.  For a lot of people that’s probably a strange concept.  Math has always been considered “hard”, and for the really advanced stuff, it is.  I’m not going to pretend that I understand a lot of it, but the idea that really strange things happen with math that we don’t ever notice because we aren’t mathematicians is fascinating to me.  After all, I work in a library: I chose words over numbers for a reason (and the Dewey Decimal System isn’t math).

Matt Parker is one of the best math YouTubers, and he has written several books for the layperson.  Easily accessible with very few equations to throw you off, he just uses regular plain English to show how much fun? Math can be.   

 

How does he pull it off?  He’s not just a math enthusiast and former teacher: he’s also a standup comedian. 

 

Humble Pi is his latest book, and it’s a tale of mathematical misery where math has gone wrong in the real world. Case in point: when Canada switched from Imperial to metric not every industry was prepared.  An Air Canada flight from Montreal intended for Edmonton never made it when the plane ran out of fuel mid-flight.  Fortunately the pilot was a skilled glider pilot as well and managed to find a runway to land on without power, but it was proof that a simple math problem can have potentially huge consequences. 

 

I realize that this doesn’t sound like the most appealing book if you just look at it on the surface, but I promise you that you’ll really look at the world in a new way when you realize how much these simple mistakes can affect you.  The stock markets can swing wildly based on a single typo in a spreadsheet. 

 

Humble Pi is a fun read.  There aren’t any complicated formulas or too many weird symbols.  Parker recognizes that the average reader probably isn’t too interested in a bunch symbols that we have probably never seen and never will see again unless we are doing a doctorate in theoretical physics.  He recognizes that not only do we not know, we don’t need to know to realize that math is more than just numbers: it’s ideas, and most of the time they are actually fairly simple ideas.  His enthusiasm shows, and it’s what makes me recommend Humble Pi  even for people who would rather never look at math again. 

 

Is That a Word?

by David Bukszpan

Scrabble is a fantastic way to spend the time with family.  I remember playing it as a kid on family vacations. I remember playing it with my (nerdy) friends on camping trips.  I know that since it was invented in the 30s and especially when it exploded in popularity in the ’50s it’s been a part of life all around the world, especially in countries that use the Latin alphabet.

One of the things I remember best, though, is arguing about whether a word is legitimate or not.  Sure, we can look it up, but can we all even agree on which language to use?  Do we use Oxford? Collins?  Merriam-Webster?  Most of them have the same words, but not all of them have all of the same ones, particularly not those that are short or obscure.   

 

This isn’t a recommendation for a dictionary, though.  I find dictionaries to be fascinating but I recognise they are not exactly compelling reading for everyone.  Is That a Word? by David Bukszpan is the history of the Scrabble lexicon.  What makes a word legal in Scrabble? Why are things like “za” (short for pizza) legal, but not proper names?  Who even decides what is acceptable? 

 

Is That a Word? is a surprisingly readable history of the game and a fun explanation of why the official word list (the “OWL”) used in tournaments is so odd.  The first few chapters discuss the invention of the game, many of the variants and spinoffs, as well as where the official word list came from. 

 

The bulk of the book is really just a list of the stranger words allowable in the game broken down into various categories.  Words that seem like they shouldn’t be allowable if you are used to thinking about them in the wrong context.  In theory, you shouldn’t be able to use people’s names such as John or Smith, but john (a toilet) and smith (a person who makes horseshoes) are perfectly acceptable. 

 

Of course, you could use the Official Scrabble Dictionary to learn all these words.  But that’s just a long list of words and meanings.  Is That a Word? is also a long list of words, but with more context and a lot more humour.  If you want to be able to dominate in Scrabble and be able to back up your boasting, this is a great way to learn.