Thinking Better
The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life
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Narrated by:
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Mark Elstob
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By:
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Marcus Du Sautoy
About this listen
One of the world's great mathematicians shows why math is the ultimate timesaver - and how everyone can make their lives easier with a few simple shortcuts.
We are often told that hard work is the key to success. But success isn’t about hard work - it’s about shortcuts. Shortcuts allow us to solve one problem quickly so that we can tackle an even bigger one. They make us capable of doing great things. And according to Marcus du Sautoy, math is the very art of the shortcut.
Thinking Better is a celebration of how math lets us do more with less. Du Sautoy explores how diagramming revolutionized therapy, why calculus is the greatest shortcut ever invented, whether you must really practice for 10,000 hours to become a concert violinist, and why shortcuts give us an advantage over even the most powerful AI. Throughout, we meet artists, scientists, and entrepreneurs who use mathematical shortcuts to change the world.
Delightful, illuminating, and, above all, practical, Thinking Better is for anyone who has wondered why you should waste time climbing the mountain when you could go around it much faster.
©2021 Marcus du Sautoy (P)2021 Basic BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Du Sautoy masterfully guides readers through complex math.... All the while, he’s encouraging about the importance of problem-solving: ‘Mathematics is a mindset for navigating a complex world and finding the pathway to the other side.’ Math-minded readers will find much to consider.” (Publishers Weekly)
“In Thinking Better, Oxford mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy pulls back the curtain to show how mathematicians think. The result is an engaging, delightful adventure through a variety of situations where mathematical thinking - in particular, the search for clever shortcuts - illuminates deeper mathematical truths. And it turns out these short cuts are incredibly useful for the rest of us, too!” (David Schwartz, author of The Last Man Who Knew Everything)
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How "Aha!" really happens....When do you get your best ideas? You probably answer "At night" or "In the shower" or "Stuck in traffic". You get a flash of insight. Things come together in your mind. You connect the dots. You say to yourself, "Aha! I see what to do." Brain science now reveals how these flashes of insight happen. It's a special form of intuition. We call it strategic intuition, because it gives you an idea for action - a strategy. This new book by William Duggan is the first full treatment of strategic intuition.
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Stratigic Intuition
- By Amazon Customer on 12-17-08
By: Bill Duggan
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Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
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Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
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Borrowing Brilliance
- The Six Steps to Business Innovation by Building on the Ideas of Others
- By: David Kord Murray
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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As a former aerospace scientist, Fortune 500 executive, chief innovation officer of two major companies, inventor and software entrepreneur, David Murray has made a living by coming up with new and innovative ideas. In Borrowing Brilliance he explains the origins and evolution of a business idea by showing you how new ideas are merely the combination of existing ideas.
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Really good but...
- By MasterMind Mentor International on 07-20-20
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Complexity
- The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
- By: M. Mitchell Waldrop
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore
- Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
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You won't learn anything you didn't know
- By Dennis E. Alwine on 12-26-20
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A Brief History of Infinity: The Quest to Think the Unthinkable
- Brief Histories
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- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
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Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the street to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.' Douglas Adams, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.We human beings have trouble with infinity - yet infinity is a surprisingly human subject. Philosophers and mathematicians have gone mad contemplating its nature and complexity - yet it is a concept routinely used by schoolchildren. Exploring the infinite is a
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Really not great in Audio, not great otherwise
- By Michael on 03-29-13
By: Brian Clegg
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Undeniable
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- By: Douglas Axe
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Throughout his distinguished and unconventional career, engineer-turned-molecular-biologist Douglas Axe has been asking the questions that much of the scientific community would rather silence. Now, he presents his conclusions in this brave and pioneering book. Axe argues that the key to understanding our origin is the "design intuition" - the innate belief held by all humans that tasks we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge.
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Seductively Challenge what are consider facts
- By Rafael Vila on 10-08-16
By: Douglas Axe
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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science - a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.
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Interesting, but material is covered in better book.
- By Erlend on 04-06-16
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Sync
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- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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At once elegant and riveting, Sync tells the story of the dawn of a new science. Steven Strogatz, a leading mathematician in the fields of chaos and complexity theory, explains how enormous systems can synchronize themselves, from the electrons in a superconductor to the pacemaker cells in our hearts. He shows that although these phenomena might seem unrelated on the surface, at a deeper level there is a connection, forged by the unifying power of mathematics.
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Engaging, but maybe better suited for non-audio
- By Ryan on 05-26-12
By: Steven Strogatz
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Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
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Wow!
- By Michael on 02-02-14
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Spooky Action at a Distance
- The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time-and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
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What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally stop to ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. The phenomenon - the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space - appears to be almost magical.
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Rambling but Asks Good Questions
- By Michael on 12-19-15
By: George Musser
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The Complete (Short) Guide to Absolutely Everything
- Adventures in Math and Science
- By: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
- Narrated by: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Geneticist Adam Rutherford and mathematician Hannah Fry guide listeners through time and space, through our bodies and brains, showing how emotions shape our view of reality, how our minds tell us lies, and why a mostly bald and curious ape decided to begin poking at the fabric of the universe.
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Humour and understandability.
- By Chris B on 09-08-24
By: Adam Rutherford, and others
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not a book
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Not written to be read aloud
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Great listen
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At its simplest, Bayes’s theorem describes the probability of an event, based on prior knowledge of conditions that might be related to the event. But in Everything Is Predictable, Tom Chivers lays out how it affects every aspect of our lives. He explains why highly accurate screening tests can lead to false positives and how a failure to account for it in court has put innocent people in jail. A cornerstone of rational thought, many argue that Bayes’s theorem is a description of almost everything. But who was the man who lent his name to this theorem?
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I was looking forward to this. What a disappointment.
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Trigonometry is perhaps the most essential concept humans have ever devised. The simple yet versatile triangle allows us to record music, map the world, launch rockets into space, and be slightly less bad at pool. Triangles underpin our day-to-day lives and civilization as we know it. In Love Triangle, Matt Parker argues we should all show a lot more love for triangles, along with all the useful trigonometry and geometry they enable.
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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, and insight.
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Great listen
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What listeners say about Thinking Better
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Theodore Crum
- 11-28-21
Cleverly designed and engaging
The choice to orient this story around the discoveries of mathematicians who’ve found shortcuts to solve complicated problems is engaging and captivating. I’ve enjoyed the author’s prior work on the four part series, “The Story of Maths,” and find that they have inspired me to think more deeply while also appreciating the work of mathematicians who have done the hard work to develop shortcuts. The analogy of standing on the shoulders of giants is apropos.
I really enjoyed devouring this book!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Heidi L Young
- 10-18-22
Interesting
interesting discussions but difficult to follow without access to diagrams. Overall I enjoyed the book.
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- E. Buckler
- 04-28-22
Needs a pdf supplement
This is a great book, but there are too many equations and diagrams to do it justice as an audiobook. I’ve seen other books in this vein do this well by providing a PDF attachment of the figures and equations.
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- Collins A. Ezeanyim
- 01-01-22
An entertaining examination of shortcuts
I've read several nonfiction books that deal with math in everyday life and specific situations and this one takes an interesting tack - it comes from the perspective of humanity's need to find the most straightforward and efficient way to an answer. In both math and in other aspects of life. (e.g. our use of language is a type of shortcut). Perhaps not the most riveting math book I've read, but one that covers a lot of intriguing ground.
The reader for this is absolutely fantastic.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Adam Silva
- 12-14-24
Purpose of shortcuts
The journey to get to the shortcuts is what really matters. Liked that the focus goes beyond mathematics.
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- Monica Pampell
- 11-25-21
Awesome
But should re-do with pen and paper so I can do some of the maths. It is a perfect addition to any aspiring data scientist
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-02-22
Journey to a shortcut
You don't have to be a mathematician to appreciate the learning in this book. This book is more about the process, or the journey, than about tricks to making life easier. It was fascinating to hear the stories behind so many things we take for granted, and a joy to imagine what awaits us.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Sean Mahoney
- 03-10-22
Don't fear the maths.
Great framework to think about the shortcuts that power our progress as a humans, and the ways to find application to our own everyday work.
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- A. Bara
- 01-30-22
Not very useful
The book does a lot of rambling about mathematical formulas and "shortcuts" but discusses nothing of the sort of a "transfer learning" approach to real world applications.
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- Khaled
- 11-03-21
Very difficult to flow without diagrams
I can’t imagine that you can only listen to someone just describing graphs. Without accompanying the audio with a pdf of graphs it is impossible to understand the content.
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11 people found this helpful