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Provides practice in working with mathematical ideas that arise in more formal or abstract settings
Demonstrates the versatility of mathematics by demonstrating how it can be used to give insights into a wide variety of everyday events
Explores real-life examples of how mathematics works
Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
How does mathematics impact everyday events? The purpose of this book is to show a range of examples where mathematics can be seen at work in everyday life.
From money (APR, mortgage repayments, personal finance), simple first and second order ODEs, sport and games (tennis, rugby, athletics, darts, tournament design, soccer, snooker), business (stock control, linear programming, check digits, promotion policies, investment), the social sciences (voting methods, Simpson’s Paradox, drug testing, measurements of inequality) to TV game shows and even gambling (lotteries, roulette, poker, horse racing), the mathematics behind commonplace events is explored. Fully worked examples illustrate the ideas discussed and each chapter ends with a collection of exercises.Everyday Mathematics supports other first year modules by giving students extra practice in working with calculus, linear algebra, geometry, trigonometry and probability. Secondary/high school level mathematics is all that is required for students to understand the material. Those students whose degree course includes writing an extended mathematical essay will find many suitable topics here, with pointers to extend and develop the material.
Reviews
“This book is a fairly dense treatment of a range of mathematical applications, from trigonometry through calculus, probability, basic counting, and voting theory. The work claims to be a source of topics for writing assignments in undergraduate math courses. … the book may best serve as a reference on a professor's shelf to skim through … .” (J. Rana, Choice, Vol. 54 (5), January, 2017)
“A large number of exercises are given at the end of each chapter … . While this book is a good response to the first year calculus student asking what math is used for, it is a significant overstatement to consider the contents a topic of everyday life.” (Charles Ashbacher, MAA Reviews, maa.org, March, 2016)
Authors and Affiliations
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University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
John Haigh
About the author
John Haigh set up the module “Mathematics In Everyday Life” at Sussex University in 2005, in response to a desire to show First Year students some of the areas where their mathematical skills and knowledge could provide useful insight, and to give them practice in applying the mathematics they were learning on other modules. This book has the benefit of feedback from several cohorts of students.
John has also written the well-received Popular Science book “Taking Chances” and, with Rob Eastaway, “The Hidden Mathematics of Sport”.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Mathematics in Everyday Life
Authors: John Haigh
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27939-8
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Mathematics and Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-27939-8Published: 22 January 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 159
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 14 illustrations in colour
Topics: Mathematics, general, Ordinary Differential Equations, Game Theory, Economics, Social and Behav. Sciences, Mathematical Modeling and Industrial Mathematics