{"id":2748,"date":"2009-07-01T07:10:50","date_gmt":"2009-06-30T23:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=2748"},"modified":"2014-06-14T14:43:20","modified_gmt":"2014-06-14T06:43:20","slug":"whos-counting-interesting-real-life-math-applications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/mathematics\/whos-counting-interesting-real-life-math-applications-2748","title":{"rendered":"Who&#8217;s Counting - interesting real-life math applications"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/search?searchtext=%22john%20allen%20paulos%22\">Who's Counting - John Allen Paulos examines the news through numbers<\/a> gives a fascinating insight into the math behind current news events.<\/p>\n<p>Paulos is a professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia and is well-known for his book <em>Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences<\/em> (1988) in which he said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I'm distressed by a society which depends so completely on mathematics and science and yet seems to indifferent to the innumeracy and scientific illiteracy of so many of its citizens.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>His monthly <em>Who's Counting<\/em> series is an attempt to address such innumeracy and scientific illiteracy.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent articles (for Jan to Jun 2009) include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/WhosCounting\/story?id=7482817&page=1\">Problem With Drug Studies: The Patients?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/WhosCounting\/story?id=7250901&page=1\">Seduce Me, Swindle Me With ... Logic?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/WhosCounting\/story?id=6562852&page=1\">Now Boarding: A Better Way to Load a Plane<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He addresses a range of issues in these articles. One that caught my eye: <a href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/WhosCounting\/story?id=99537&page=1\">How to Calculate Chances of Doomsday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Paulos is worth checking out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"alt\"><a href=\"#respond\" id=\"comms\">Be the first to comment<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Allen Paulos discusses why it is important to understand math in the news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2748"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2748\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}