by David Sumpter ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 27, 2024
The mathematics of problem-solving—always ingenious and often helpful.
A mathematician explains how to deal with the world.
Sumpter, a professor of applied mathematics and the author of Ten Equations That Rule the World, writes that our thinking as we navigate life can be classified as either statistical (or stable), periodic, chaotic, or complex. Making his approach as simple as possible, the author divides the book into four sections, one for each category of thought. The first section may seem like the easiest, but statistics can be misleading or even meaningless. In his discussion of periodic thinking, one of his anecdotes involves Adam Smith. A professor explained to him that Smith “had been wrong, because his stable thinking had convinced him that the market would reach and stay at equilibrium. But Smith’s thinking was, Parker said, reductionist. Accounting for our interactions, the way we also behaved like animal herds, showed that human society was anything but stable.” Perhaps the most startling category, chaos as a mathematical and scientific entity is a 20th-century discovery. (For more on the science of chaos, turn to Peter Gleick’s groundbreaking 1987 book, Chaos.) As Sumpter demonstrates, chaos is not the same as total confusion, but rather a specific natural phenomenon in which tiny changes in initial conditions lead to enormous unpredictable effects. This is why, no matter how much information computers can gather about weather conditions today, predictions beyond a week are unreliable. Unlike the previous three, complex thinking is less about solutions than “finding the stories which help us to better understand ourselves, as well as those around us.” Despite the upbeat conclusion, Sumpter has not written a self-improvement guide or another how-to-lie-with-statistics knockoff. Rather, he offers a fairly clearheaded popular mathematics survey that will appeal to readers of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow and similar books.
The mathematics of problem-solving—always ingenious and often helpful.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781250806260
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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