INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“A new masterpiece from one of my favorite authors… [How The World Really Works] is a compelling and highly readable book that leaves readers with the fundamental grounding needed to help solve the world’s toughest challenges.”—Bill Gates “Provocative but perceptive . . . You can agree or disagree with Smil—accept or doubt his ‘just the facts’ posture—but you probably shouldn’t ignore him.”—The Washington PostAn essential analysis of the modern science and technology that makes our twenty-first century lives possible—a scientist's investigation into what science really does, and does not, accomplish.We have never had so much information at our fingertips and yet most of us don’t know how the world really works. This book explains seven of the most fundamental realities governing our survival and prosperity. From energy and food production, through our material world and its globalization, to risks, our environment and its future, How the World Really Works offers a much-needed reality check—because before we can tackle problems effectively, we must understand the facts. In this ambitious and thought-provoking book we see, for example, that globalization isn’t inevitable—the foolishness of allowing 70 per cent of the world’s rubber gloves to be made in just one factory became glaringly obvious in 2020—and that our societies have been steadily increasing their dependence on fossil fuels, such that any promises of decarbonization by 2050 are a fairy tale. For example, each greenhouse-grown supermarket-bought tomato has the equivalent of five tablespoons of diesel embedded in its production, and we have no way of producing steel, cement or plastics at required scales without huge carbon emissions. Ultimately, Smil answers the most profound question of our age: are we irrevocably doomed or is a brighter utopia ahead? Compelling, data-rich and revisionist, this wonderfully broad, interdisciplinary guide finds faults with both extremes. Looking at the world through this quantitative lens reveals hidden truths that change the way we see our past, present and uncertain future. Read more

Named a Best Book of the Year by Forbes and The EconomistFrom our "greatest living statistical communicator" (Tim Harford) comes an invaluable, data-driven guide for understanding—and learning to embrace—risk and uncertainty in our daily lives.How dangerous is our diet? How much of sports falls into the realm of luck? When authorities categorize a given event as “highly likely”—how likely is that, really? Whether we’re trying to decide if the benefits of a new medication are worth the chance of side effects or if artificial intelligence truly threatens humanity, our lives are riddled with uncertainties both everyday and existential—yet it can be difficult to know how to properly weigh all those unknowns. Luckily for us, renowned statistician David Spiegelhalter has spent his career dissecting data to resolve the apparently random and decode the many decisions we face with imperfect information. In The Art of Uncertainty, he shows how we can become better at dealing with what we don’t know to make smarter choices in a world so full of puzzling variablesIn lucid, lively prose, Spiegelhalter guides us through the principles of probability, illustrating how they can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to sports to climate change forecasts. He demonstrates how taking a mathematical approach to phenomena we might otherwise attribute to fate or luck can help us sort hidden patterns from mere coincidences, better evaluate cause and effect, and predict what’s likely to happen in the future. Along the way, we learn how a misinterpretation of a probability contributed to the infamous Bay of Pigs fiasco, why a ship twice the size of the Titanic sank without a trace, and why we can be so confident that no two properly shuffled decks of cards have ever been in the same orderSparkling with wit and fascinating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty while also retaining the humility to admit what we don’t, or simply cannot, know. Read more

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AN ADAM SAVAGE BOOK CLUB PICKThe book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, “When am I ever going to use this in the real world?” “Fun, informative, and relentlessly entertaining, Humble Pi is a charming and very readable guide to some of humanity's all-time greatest miscalculations—that also gives you permission to feel a little better about some of your own mistakes.” —Ryan North, author of How to Invent Everything Our whole world is built on math, from the code running a website to the equations enabling the design of skyscrapers and bridges. Most of the time this math works quietly behind the scenes . . . until it doesn’t. All sorts of seemingly innocuous mathematical mistakes can have significant consequences. Math is easy to ignore until a misplaced decimal point upends the stock market, a unit conversion error causes a plane to crash, or someone divides by zero and stalls a battleship in the middle of the ocean. Exploring and explaining a litany of glitches, near misses, and mathematical mishaps involving the internet, big data, elections, street signs, lotteries, the Roman Empire, and an Olympic team, Matt Parker uncovers the bizarre ways math trips us up, and what this reveals about its essential place in our world. Getting it wrong has never been more fun. Read more

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Featured by Tableau as the first of "7 Books About Machine Learning for Beginners."Ready to spin up a virtual GPU instance and smash through petabytes of data? Want to add 'Machine Learning' to your LinkedIn profile?Well, hold on there...Before you embark on your journey, there are some high-level theory and statistical principles to weave through first.But rather than spend $30-$50 USD on a thick textbook, you may want to read this book first. As a clear and concise alternative, this book provides a high-level introduction to machine learning, free downloadable code exercises, and video demonstrations. Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners Third Edition has been written and designed for absolute beginners. This means plain-English explanations and no coding experience required. Where core algorithms are introduced, clear explanations and visual examples are added to make it easy to follow along at home.New Updated EditionThis new edition features extended chapters with quizzes, free supplementary online video tutorials for coding models in Python, and downloadable resources not included in the Second Edition. Disclaimer: If you have passed the 'beginner' stage in your study of machine learning and are ready to tackle coding and deep learning, you would be well served with a long-format textbook. If, however, you are yet to reach that Lion King moment - as a fully grown Simba looking over the Pride Lands of Africa - then this is the book to gently hoist you up and give a clear lay of the land.In This Step-By-Step Guide You Will Learn• How to download free datasets • What tools and machine learning libraries you need • Data scrubbing techniques, including one-hot encoding, binning and dealing with missing data • Preparing data for analysis, including k-fold Validation • Regression analysis to create trend lines • k-Means Clustering to find new relationships • The basics of Neural Networks • Bias/Variance to improve your machine learning model • Decision Trees to decode classification, and • How to build your first Machine Learning Model to predict house values using PythonFrequently Asked QuestionsQ: Do I need programming experience to complete this e-book? A: This e-book is designed for absolute beginners, so no programming experience is required. However, two of the later chapters introduce Python to demonstrate an actual machine learning model, so you will see some programming used in this book. Q: I have already purchased the Second Edition of Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners, should I purchase this Third Edition? A: As the same topics from the Second Edition are covered in the Third Edition, you may be better served reading a more advanced title on machine learning. If you have purchased a previous edition of this book and wish to get access to the free video tutorials, please email the author. Q: Does this book include everything I need to become a machine learning expert? A: Unfortunately, no. This book is designed for readers taking their first steps in machine learning and further learning will be required beyond this book to master machine learning.Please feel welcome to join this introductory course by buying a copy, or sending a free sample to your chosen device. Read more

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates“Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates"Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack ObamaFactfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases.It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. ---“This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance…Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017. Read more

The Instant New York Times Bestseller“Engaging and entertaining… a glimpse of the economy of the future.” —Tim Wu, New York Times Book ReviewFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise,the definitive guide to our era of risk—and the players raising the stakes   In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates “the River,” the community of like-minded people whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. These professional risk-takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the twenty-first century. By immersing himself in the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. Most of us don’t have traits commonly found in the River: high tolerance for risk, appreciation of uncertainty, affinity for numbers—paired with an instinctive distrust of conventional wisdom and a competitive drive so intense it can border on irrational. For those in the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it. People in the River have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—and the flaws in their thinking— is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. Taking us behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms, and from the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of power bro­kers and risk-takers. Read more

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Would you like to be a proficient mathematician… without using numbers?There is so much more to math than geometry and calculus! It is present in almost every life aspect, from improving your communication skills to how to fit your luggage into your car.Did you always hate math because you couldn’t understand complex formulas?Don’t let a few equations or a bad teacher deter you from building a mathematical mind. Learn the best cognitive tools to revolutionize the way you make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.Boost your critical thinking and analytical skills.Mathematical thinking involves analyzing data, patterns, and relationships and evaluating information and arguments, which can help improve critical thinking skills.Adopt a mathematician’s mindset. Tinker, invent, make educated guesses, describe with precision, and use probability to your advantage.Build a Mathematical Mind – Even If You Think You Can’t Have One is an action manual that will help you sharpen your everyday life skills such as:- improving your logic,- understanding how probability works,- and making estimations.This is a research-backed math manual you'll love to read. It contains examples for faster learning and greater everyday impact.Hone your problem-solving skills and make better decisions.Albert Rutherford is an internationally bestselling author whose writing derives from various sources, such as research, coaching, academic, and real-life experience.Improve your communication skills. Mathematical thinking involves clearly and concisely explaining ideas and solutions, which can improve how you communicate. With enhanced precision, you will have a keen attention to detail and the ability to be accurate in your thinking and talking.Increase your confidence. Developing mathematical thinking skills can increase your confidence and self-esteem, being able to solve difficult problems and understand complex ideas.If you ever felt ashamed for not getting math, this is the time to heal that wound. Give math another chance. Let it make you unstoppable! Read more

The companion book to COURSERA®'s wildly popular massive open online course "Learning How to Learn"Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material. Engineering professor Barbara Oakley knows firsthand how it feels to struggle with math. She flunked her way through high school math and science courses, before enlisting in the army immediately after graduation. When she saw how her lack of mathematical and technical savvy severely limited her options—both to rise in the military and to explore other careers—she returned to school with a newfound determination to re-tool her brain to master the very subjects that had given her so much trouble throughout her entire life.   In A Mind for Numbers, Dr. Oakley lets us in on the secrets to learning effectively—secrets that even dedicated and successful students wish they’d known earlier. Contrary to popular belief, math requires creative, as well as analytical, thinking. Most people think that there’s only one way to do a problem, when in actuality, there are often a number of different solutions—you just need the creativity to see them. For example, there are more than three hundred different known proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem. In short, studying a problem in a laser-focused way until you reach a solution is not an effective way to learn. Rather, it involves taking the time to step away from a problem and allow the more relaxed and creative part of the brain to take over. The learning strategies in this book apply not only to math and science, but to any subject in which we struggle. We all have what it takes to excel in areas that don't seem to come naturally to us at first, and learning them does not have to be as painful as we might think. Read more

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking exploration of probability and uncertainty that explains how to make better predictions in a world drowning in data, from the nation’s foremost political forecaster—updated with insights into the pandemic, journalism today, and pollingOne of The Wall Street Journal’s Ten Best Works of Nonfiction of the Year“Could turn out to be one of the more momentous books of the decade.”—The New York Times Book ReviewMost predictions fail, often at great cost to society, because experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”: The more humility we have about our ability to make predictions, the more successful we can be in planning for the future.Drawing on his own groundbreaking work in sports and politics, Nate Silver examines the world of prediction, investigating how to seek truth from data. In The Signal and the Noise, Silver visits innovative forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball to global pandemics, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He discovers that what the most accurate ones have in common is a superior command of probability—as well as a healthy dose of humility.With everything from the global economy to the fight against disease hanging on the quality of our predictions, Nate Silver’s insights are an essential read. Read more

A New York Times bestseller"Brilliant, funny…the best math teacher you never had." —San Francisco ChronicleOnce considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has actually called "sexy." From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that cheat on standardized tests? How does Netflix know which movies you’ll like? What is causing the rising incidence of autism? As best-selling author Charles Wheelan shows us in Naked Statistics, the right data and a few well-chosen statistical tools can help us answer these questions and more.For those who slept through Stats 101, this book is a lifesaver. Wheelan strips away the arcane and technical details and focuses on the underlying intuition that drives statistical analysis. He clarifies key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis, reveals how biased or careless parties can manipulate or misrepresent data, and shows us how brilliant and creative researchers are exploiting the valuable data from natural experiments to tackle thorny questions.And in Wheelan’s trademark style, there’s not a dull page in sight. You’ll encounter clever Schlitz Beer marketers leveraging basic probability, an International Sausage Festival illuminating the tenets of the central limit theorem, and a head-scratching choice from the famous game show Let’s Make a Deal—and you’ll come away with insights each time. With the wit, accessibility, and sheer fun that turned Naked Economics into a bestseller, Wheelan defies the odds yet again by bringing another essential, formerly unglamorous discipline to life. Read more

“I am hard pressed to think of another book that can match the combination of practical insights and reading enjoyment.”—Steven LevittGame theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It’s the art of anticipating your opponent’s next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies—from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history—the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it. Mastering game theory will make you more successful in business and life, and this lively book is the key to that mastery. Read more

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A practical guide to making good decisions in a world of missing dataIn the era of big data, it is easy to imagine that we have all the information we need to make good decisions. But in fact the data we have are never complete, and may be only the tip of the iceberg. Just as much of the universe is composed of dark matter, invisible to us but nonetheless present, the universe of information is full of dark data that we overlook at our peril. In Dark Data, data expert David Hand takes us on a fascinating and enlightening journey into the world of the data we don't see.Dark Data explores the many ways in which we can be blind to missing data and how that can lead us to conclusions and actions that are mistaken, dangerous, or even disastrous. Examining a wealth of real-life examples, from the Challenger shuttle explosion to complex financial frauds, Hand gives us a practical taxonomy of the types of dark data that exist and the situations in which they can arise, so that we can learn to recognize and control for them. In doing so, he teaches us not only to be alert to the problems presented by the things we don’t know, but also shows how dark data can be used to our advantage, leading to greater understanding and better decisions.Today, we all make decisions using data. Dark Data shows us all how to reduce the risk of making bad ones. Read more

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“Delightful . . . easily digestible chapters include plenty of helpful examples and illustrations. You'll never forget the Pythagorean theorem again!”—Scientific American Many people take math in high school and promptly forget much of it. But math plays a part in all of our lives all of the time, whether we know it or not. In The Joy of x, Steven Strogatz expands on his hit New York Times series to explain the big ideas of math gently and clearly, with wit, insight, and brilliant illustrations. Whether he is illuminating how often you should flip your mattress to get the maximum lifespan from it, explaining just how Google searches the internet, or determining how many people you should date before settling down, Strogatz shows how math connects to every aspect of life. Discussing pop culture, medicine, law, philosophy, art, and business, Strogatz is the math teacher you wish you’d had. Whether you aced integral calculus or aren’t sure what an integer is, you’ll find profound wisdom and persistent delight in The Joy of x. Read more

What if everything you thought about intelligence was wrong?For centuries, intelligence was humanity’s greatest advantage. Now, we’re building machines that don’t just process information—they learn, adapt, and create. As AI accelerates beyond human comprehension, one question remains: where does intelligence truly begin—and where does it end?In The Digital Brain, global AI expert Sebastián Barros unravels the past, present, and future of intelligence—from the ancient mysteries of the human brain to the groundbreaking AI systems shaping our world. Blending cutting-edge science, mind-bending history, and bold predictions, this book reveals the hidden patterns of intelligence—whether biological, artificial, or something beyond both.How close are we to machines that truly think?Will AI surpass us—or are we missing the real question?What secrets of the brain can unlock the next AI revolution?This isn’t just another book about AI. This is the story of intelligence itself.The race for the future has already begun. Are you ready to understand it? Read more