The Math of Life and Death

By: Kit Yates

Narrated by: Kit Yates

Brilliant and entertaining mathematician Kit Yates illuminates seven mathematical concepts that shape our daily lives.

From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures we encounter as we go about our days can leave us scratching our heads, feeling as if we’re fumbling through a mathematical minefield. In this eye-opening and “welcome addition to the math-for-people-who-hate-math” (Kirkus Reviews), Kit Yates illuminates hidden principles that can help us understand and navigate the chaotic and often opaque surfaces of our world.

In The Math of Life and Death, Yates takes us on a “dizzying, dazzling” (Nature) tour of everyday situations and grand-scale applications of mathematical concepts, including exponential growth and decay, optimization, statistics and probability, and number systems. Along the way he reveals the mathematical undersides of controversies over DNA testing, Ponzi schemes, viral marketing, and historical events such as the Chernobyl disaster and the Amanda Knox trial. Readers will finish this book with an enlightened perspective on the news, the law, medicine, and history, and will be better equipped to make personal decisions and solve problems with math in mind, whether it’s choosing the shortest checkout line at the grocery store or halting the spread of a deadly disease.

Critic reviews

"Yates, a mathematical biologist from the University of Bath, England, can spin a funny yarn. Listeners will smile as he tells how he turned up early at an airport once because he mixed up A.M. and P.M. His stories tend to have a serious side, though. His airport mix-up leads into explaining how time zone confusion thwarted the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Yates looks at the math relating to a lot of serious topics, such as radiation, police shootings and mass shootings, pyramid schemes, and smallpox vaccines. He keeps the topics lively and interesting. . . . Yates also offers listeners much needed ways to look skeptically at courtroom statements, statistics, and social media."

A must read!

Easily accessible book describing entertaining real world examples of how math has been used to save and destroy lives. A powerful tool to improve your ability to understand the world.

Really is the mouth of life and death

This book is titled the mouth of life and death and it really is. Some of the parts are slow but for the most part it’s fascinating so stick with it.

A good book if you are into statistics and math(s)

I am clearly not the target audience for this book because, while there are no formulas to navigate, there is still a lot of discussions of algorithms, statistics, etc. which I confess bores me to tears.

Having said that,there is some stuff in this book that even I found interesting, like how math and statistics are misused in courtrooms and an interesting discussion of vaccinations and anti-vaxers [It would be nice of this was required reading for anti-vaxers, but having experience with them, I don’t believe facts or mathematical data will change their opinion.]

Well done!

Extremely interesting. Some I do you’ll know, some you’ll know without even realizing it, and some will be fascinating new stuff. Well worth the listen. Yes, there are some anti-conservative hints in the book and one place where he does completely stumble (dependent variables and death rates in some demographic groups— leaves out/ minimizes the part about those getting shot by or encountering the police generally are not randomly roaming the street…) but aside from these few areas, we thought the east of the book very entertaining.

Stats graduate student very impressed

This is a great overview of basic probability and statistics with intriguing real life stories.