Math for Life Quantitative Literacy for the Modern World

The spread of disease. Lotteries. Cell phones and driving. Personal budgeting. The federal debt. Social Security. Tax reform. Energy policy. Political redistricting. Population growth. Radiation from nuclear power plants. AI deepfakes. These topics may seem very different, but they share two things in common. First, each is a topic with important implications for personal success or our success as a nation. Second, each can be fully understood only with clear quantitative or mathematical thinking. In other words, these are all topics for which we need “ math for life” — sometimes called quantitative literacy or quantitative reasoning— a kind of math that differs from most of the math we learn in school but that is just as (and often more) important. In Math for Life, award-winning author Jeffrey Bennett simply and clearly explains key ideas of quantitative literacy and applies them to all the above topics and many more. He also uses these topics to analyze our current education system, identifying both shortfalls in current mathematics teaching and solutions for our educational future. No matter your own level of mathematical ability and no matter whether you approach the book as an educator, student, or interested adult, you are sure to find new and thought-provoking ideas in Math for Life.

Jeffrey Bennett served as the first director of the program in Quantitative Reasoning and Mathematical Skills at the University of Colorado, where he developed the groundbreaking curriculum that became the basis of his well-known textbook for quantitative reasoning (Bennett & Briggs, Using and Understanding Mathematics, Pearson). He holds a PhD in astrophysics (University of Colorado) and is also the lead author of textbooks on statistical reasoning, astronomy, and astrobiology. He has written numerous critically acclaimed books for the general public on topics including Einstein’ s theory of relativity, the search for extraterrestrial life, global warming, science teaching, and the scale of the universe. He is also the author of seven award-winning children’ s books, including two that have been made into planetarium shows distributed around the world. Among many honors, his children’ s books were the first ever selected for Story Time From Space, in which astronauts read books aloud from the International Space Station, he has won both the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award and the American Association of Physics Teachers Klopsteg Education Award, and his recent book on global warming won the Foreward Indies Book of the Year award for ecology and the environment. Learn more at his web sites: www.jeffreybennett.com, www.bigkidscience.com.