The Ten Equations that Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too

The author gives us a fascinating view of the world from a very different perspective. Using mathematical equations in everyday life is not something I have ever thought about before, but maths can be used to great advantage in determining the balance of probability in all sorts of situations.We are given some entertaining background to how these equations can be used from the authors own experiences and examples of how these are formulated. I think you really need to have an understanding of mathematics to get the most out of this book, I must admit that I got a little lost with some of the combinations and how they would be applied.The book does stimulate your thinking as to what is behind predictions of who is going to win that election or world cup? but mathematical equations can help identify these outcomes with some degree of success.If this sounds like your kind of subject then give it a try!

The style was a mixture of the breezy and the quite specific. The specific is where the meat of the book is - some genuinely good pointers to learning. The breezy got a bit irritating at times but overall the book is worth a 2nd and probably 3rd read without being as dry as a genuine textbook - a pretty good stab at popular maths at the serious end. A better editor would have got it 5 stars I think, but the premise is that he was let off the hook to write what he wanted.

This is a great book, and if you have a passing interest in maths, then its definitely for you, and one for any budding mathematicians. The idea is that there are behaviours that are modelled by some mathematical equations, and that understanding how these equations work allows one to understand better behaviour and outcomes.Of course, this is about bulk behaviour, and is about giving the reader more understanding about what's going on. I did a bit of the maths myself as I read, and found it quite rewarding, changing input parameters and the like. The book is well-written, and communicates what it wants to clearly. I liked this approach a lot.I hope that you found this review helpful.

So I was looking forward to this book and I'd pre-orderd it. Sadly, the book was just OK. In truth it was a bit of a dull read actually. A bit of yawn fest really. While the title draws you in I wouldn't be rushing to recommend this book. I suppose if you've been living under a rock for the last 20 years you might be surprised by the ten equations. The anecdotal stories read like dull padding. The sections that were sprinkled with moral philosophy read as if they were stuck on as an afterthought and not really well thought through. Indeed those sections read like an apology but I couldn't figure out what the author was apologizing for or indeed to who? Very odd! In summary the book really needed some editing.

This is an excellent book. It is not aimed at mathematicians, indeed you might be a little frustrated if you are one, because this uses words to tell the story - the equations are mostly there for decoration. David Sumpter is that rare thing (in my experience) a mathematician who is great at telling stories. That is a good thing - not least because so many people have so little grasp of probability and statistics. That means they make decisions without really understanding how to weigh things up. You should read this book. It is nearly as good a as Kahneman's thinking fast and slow.

Bought as a gift. Made an interesting topic of discussion .

At first glance this seems like a fascinating book, but don’t be deceived by the title and synopsis. It starts promisingly with a chapter on gambling, but in the end, what we end up with is a book full of repetition, political biases and not much to learn from mathematically-speaking. The variety of “case studies” is focussed around gambling and sport, and to a lesser extent big-tech; all in all feeling imbalanced. Regarding his regular and unnecessary political opinions, here is a quote:“I have always been left-wing… I have been a feminist. I have always been what is now called ‘woke’.”This tells you all you need to know. For a book that is supposed to be quantitative, his duty should be to present information in the least biased way possible. We don’t need left-wing opinions here. This is particularly problematic when he takes every opportunity he can to say that anyone who is right-wing is bad. For example, in the same paragraph as speaking about the “rise of the right in Sweden”, he says,“…what Spider-Man does: he follows his intuition and uses his skills to kill the bad guy.”In another part of the book he is also mentions apparently “extreme right-wing ideologies” in the same paragraph as Jordan Peterson and fake news.The irony of this is that a lot of supposedly fake news channels labelled as conspiracy theorists have turned out to be correct on a number of recent issues, but have been suppressed and labelled as evil by the establishment, because of fear of the truth getting out. Just call the other side bad names in the hope of silencing them.The most offensive of all Sumpter’s biases was in his discussion about immigration and integration in Sweden, where he cited a study, which in itself was biased, since it omitted parameters that would have weakened its left-wing agenda. I won’t go into details, but one example of this is the fact that those of Muslim origin received less call-backs when sending out CVs. One parameter would have been the fact that the HR department might have wanted someone born in Sweden with full residency because they are less likely to leave the company. Another might have been that the company in question was atheistic and did not want to divide its workforce according to religion, nor lose any corporate time on prayer. But no, apparently it’s 100% to do with “racism” and there are no other factors?Sumpter didn’t consider the fact that there is no quantitative evidence of success anywhere in Europe concerning multiculturalism and integration when it comes to non-European nationalities. All around the world we see indigenous or immigrants people living separately from each other. Those on the right are not “evil” or bad for wanting their countries stay how they are. What *is* “evil” is 1) not giving people the right to choose who comes to their home, i.e., their country, and 2) calling them bad names for wanting to keep their country in its existing equilibrium.To conclude: if you want a book an actual maths in the context of discussions about modern society, then this is not a book you should buy.

This is a great book. Very nicely written. It shows how mathematics can help in different but very important aspects of our lives. It was nice to see, that maths not only are useful to find out precise and exact answers. They also help as a way of thinking. And that is at least as important as solutions themselves. Once you can begin to model something you get focus on what factors are relevant and how they interact to produce results. That is something you can always use, even if you don't come to any number at all. Sumpter shows just that beautifully hier. His thoughts on Ethics are very interesting as well. It is sort of reassuring to think that maths are moral neutral. That leaves us rational and conscious (sentient) entities with the responsibility of morally judging our world and our own conducts.Really nice.

Super!

David is an inspriration and a good writer and a very modest person. Give him a follow on twitter and youtube and challenge him for a game on Twelwe Football App to get more from the book!

I didn't expect to find myself so hooked by a book which focussed on equations. I expect I'll be coming back to the easy to understand explanations and real world lessons from time to time in the future. Also a great intro to the logic contained in AI.

I found the first chapters Informative. However, I constantly found myself skipping through countless sections because the author repeats himself endlessly without providing any relevant information.This book seems to be a lot of gibber jabber from a sanctimonious arrogant prick who cares more about listing famous people and reiterate the same ideas.This book could have been summarized in 5 pages or less. But, i guess the author was interested in making a quick buck...I don’t think he is an academic... more like a glorified hack.