Mathematics Audiobooks | Science & Technology

Domestic Science: Series 1 and 2: The BBC Radio 4 comedy

Get ready to enjoy both series 1 and 2 of the heady combination of maths, science and comedy that is Domestic Science. Featuring Matt Parker, Steve Mould and Helen Arney as Festival of the Spoken Nerd, these 8 episodes use stand-up, songs and experiments to investigate the world around us with a level of scientific accuracy not normally found in your average comedy series. If you've ever pondered where the mint in your toothpaste really comes from, or wondered what The Hot Chocolate Effect is, then come explore and play along at home. The team also investigate everything from radioactive bananas and musical bicycle tyres to assisting you with mathematically efficient sock storage and how to host your very own static electricity party. UK science comedy phenomenon Festival of the Spoken Nerd created this truly experimental radio show for BBC Radio 4, alongside appearances on BBC2's QI and sharing stages at the Hammersmith Apollo and Royal Albert Hall with comedian Robin Ince, Professor Brian Cox and Commander Chris Hadfield. They toured their most recent stand-up science show to over 50,000 curious nerds (and non-nerds) and have accumulated millions of views on YouTube for their stand-up maths, songs and science explanations.

Festival Of The Spoken Nerd (Author), Helen Arney, Matt Parker, Steve Mould (Narrator)

Audiobook

Gunpowder and Geometry: The Life of Charles Hutton, Pit Boy, Mathematician and Scientific Rebel

August, 1755. Newcastle, on the north bank of the Tyne. In the fields, men and women are getting the harvest in. Sunlight, or rain. Scudding clouds and backbreaking labour. Three hundred feet underground, young Charles Hutton is at the coalface. Cramped, dust-choked, wielding a five-pound pick by candlelight. Eighteen years old, he's been down the pits on and off for more than a decade, and now it looks like a life sentence. No unusual story, although Charles is a clever lad - gifted at maths and languages - and for a time he hoped for a different life. Many hoped. Charles Hutton, astonishingly, would actually live the life he dreamed of. Twenty years later you'd have found him in Slaughter's coffee house in London, eating a few oysters with the President of the Royal Society. By the time he died, in 1823, he was a fellow of scientific academies in four countries, while the Lord Chancellor of England counted himself fortunate to have known him. Hard work, talent, and no small share of luck would take Charles Hutton out of the pit to international fame, wealth, admiration and happiness. The pit-boy turned professor would become one of the most revered British scientists of his day. This book is his incredible story.

Benjamin Wardhaugh (Author), Jim Barclay (Narrator)

Audiobook

Game Theory and Strategy Explained

Game Theory has evolved since its inception, but at its root, it is the modeling of strategic interactions between two or more players where there is a set of rules and outcomes! This basic definition gets to the heart of what Game Theory is. And this can be applied to almost any situation in your life and your business. Regardless of your status, as an entrepreneur or a part of the employed, this theory can serve you well. It can help you develop strategic approaches to real life situations, where you predict, with remarkable accuracy, the best possible route towards the best possible outcomes. If you wanted to have a crystal ball, one that helps you predict the future, then Game Theory would be as close to that crystal ball as you can get, in real-life! Game Theory and Strategy go hand in hand. In fact, they are like the big brother and the little brother of social interaction. Where Game Theory is the big brother, used to guide you along the way, Strategy is the little brother, needing guidance, and who cannot exist successfully in the absence of 'big brother'! They, therefore, have a tandem and reciprocal relationship.

Can Akdeniz, Introbooks Team (Author), David Willams, Introbooks (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

A contrarian argues that modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these 'too good to not be true' theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.

Sabine Hossenfelder (Author), Laura Jennings (Narrator)

Audiobook

It All Adds Up: The Story of People and Mathematics

'Fascinating ... so enlightening that suddenly maths doesn't seem so fearsome as it once did' SIMON WINCHESTER From Aristotle to Ada Lovelace: a brief history of the mathematical ideas that have forever changed the world and the everyday people and pioneers behind them. The story of our best invention yet. From our ability to calculate the passing of time to the algorithms that control computers and much else in our lives, numbers are everywhere. They are so indispensable that we forget how fundamental they are to our way of life. In this international bestseller, Mickaël Launay mixes history and anecdotes from around the world to reveal how mathematics became pivotal to the story of humankind. It is a journey into numbers with Launay as a guide. In museums, monuments or train stations, he uses the objects around us to explain what art can reveal about geometry, how Babylonian scholars developed one of the first complex written languages, and how 'Arabic' numbers were adopted from India. It All Adds Up also tells the story of how mapping the trajectory of an eclipse has helped to trace the precise day of one of the oldest battles in history, how the course of the modern-day Greenwich Meridian was established, and why negative numbers were accepted just last century. This book is a vital compendium of the great men and women of mathematics from Aristotle to Ada Lovelace, which demonstrates how mathematics shaped the written word and the world. With clarity, passion and wisdom, the author unveils the unexpected and at times serendipitous ways in which big mathematical ideas were created. Supporting the belief that - just like music or literature - maths should be accessible to everyone, Launay will inspire a new fondness for the numbers that surround us and the rich stories they contain.

Mickael Launay (Author), Oli Hembrough, Oliver Hembrough (Narrator)

Audiobook

Making Up Your Own Mind: Thinking Effectively through Creative Puzzle-Solving

How you can become better at solving real-world problems by learning creative puzzle-solving skills We solve countless problems-big and small-every day. With so much practice, why do we often have trouble making simple decisions-much less arriving at optimal solutions to important questions? Are we doomed to this muddle-or is there a practical way to learn to think more effectively and creatively? In this enlightening, entertaining, and inspiring book, Edward Burger shows how we can become far better at solving real-world problems by learning creative puzzle-solving skills using simple, effective thinking techniques. Making Up Your Own Mind teaches these techniques-including how to ask good questions, fail and try again, and change your mind-and then helps you practice them with fun verbal and visual puzzles. The goal is not to quickly solve each challenge but to come up with as many different ways of thinking about it as possible. As you see the puzzles in ever-greater depth, your mind will change, helping you become a more imaginative and creative thinker in daily life. And learning how to be a better thinker pays off in incalculable ways for anyone-including students, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners. A book about changing your mind and creating an even better version of yourself through mental play, Making Up Your Own Mind will delight and reward anyone who wants to learn how to find better solutions to life's innumerable puzzles. And the puzzles extend to the thought-provoking format of the book itself because one of the later short chapters is printed upside down while another is printed in mirror image, further challenging the reader to see the world through different perspectives and make new meaning.

Edward B. Burger (Author), Edward B. Burger (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved: How Mathematical Genius Discovered the Language of Symmetry

What do Bach's compositions, Rubik's Cube, the way we choose our mates, and the physics of subatomic particles have in common? All are governed by the laws of symmetry, which elegantly unify scientific and artistic principles. Yet the mathematical language of symmetry—known as group theory—did not emerge from the study of symmetry at all, but from an equation that couldn't be solved.For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two great prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. These geniuses, a Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel and a romantic Frenchman named Évariste Galois, both died tragically young. Their incredible labor, however, produced the origins of group theory.The first extensive, popular account of the mathematics of symmetry and order, The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved is told not through abstract formulas but in a beautifully written and dramatic account of the lives and work of some of the greatest and most intriguing mathematicians in history.

Mario Livio (Author), Tom Parks (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers: How Maths Can Make Life Better

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, written and read by Bobby Seagull. If you found maths lessons at school irrelevant and boring, that's because you didn't have a teacher like Bobby Seagull. Long before his rise to cult fandom on University Challenge, Bobby Seagull was obsessed with numbers. They were the keys that unlocked the randomness of football results, the beauty of art and the best way to get things done. In his absorbing book, Bobby tells the story of his life through numbers and shows the incredible ways maths can make sense of the world around us. From magic shows to rap lyrics, from hobbies to outer space, from fitness to food - Bobby's infectious enthusiasm for numbers will change how you think about almost everything. Told through fascinating stories and insights from Bobby's life, and with head-scratching puzzles in every chapter, you'll never look at numbers the same way again.

Bobby Seagull (Author), Bobby Seagull (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Art of Logic in an Illogical World

How both logical and emotional reasoning can help us live better in our post-truth world In a world where fake news stories change election outcomes, has rationality become futile? In The Art of Logic in an Illogical World, Eugenia Cheng throws a lifeline to readers drowning in the illogic of contemporary life. Cheng is a mathematician, so she knows how to make an airtight argument. But even for her, logic sometimes falls prey to emotion, which is why she still fears flying and eats more cookies than she should. If a mathematician can't be logical, what are we to do? In this book, Cheng reveals the inner workings and limitations of logic, and explains why alogic--for example, emotion--is vital to how we think and communicate. Cheng shows us how to use logic and alogic together to navigate a world awash in bigotry, mansplaining, and manipulative memes. Insightful, useful, and funny, this essential book is for anyone who wants to think more clearly.

Eugenia Cheng (Author), Moira Quirk (Narrator)

Audiobook

Exact Thinking in Demented Times: The Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Scienc

A dazzling group biography of the early twentieth-century thinkers who transformed the way the world thought about math and science Inspired by Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and Bertrand Russell and David Hilbert's pursuit of the fundamental rules of mathematics, some of the most brilliant minds of the generation came together in post-World War I Vienna to present the latest theories in mathematics, science, and philosophy and to build a strong foundation for scientific investigation. Composed of such luminaries as Kurt Gödel and Rudolf Carnap, and stimulated by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper, the Vienna Circle left an indelible mark on science. Exact Thinking in Demented Times tells the often outrageous, sometimes tragic, and never boring stories of the men who transformed scientific thought. A revealing work of history, this landmark book pays tribute to those who dared to reinvent knowledge from the ground up.

Karl Sigmund (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Hello World, written and read by Hannah Fry. You are accused of a crime. Who would you rather determined your fate - a human or an algorithm? An algorithm is more consistent and less prone to error of judgement. Yet a human can look you in the eye before passing sentence. You need a liver transplant to save your life. Who would you want in charge of organ allocation? An algorithm can match organ donors with patients, potentially saving many more lives. But it may send you to the back of the queue. You're buying a (driverless) car. One vehicle is programmed to save as many lives as possible in a collision. Another promises to prioritize the lives of its passengers. Which do you choose? Welcome to the age of the algorithm, the story of a not-too-distant future where machines rule supreme, making important decisions - in healthcare, transport, finance, security, what we watch, where we go even who we send to prison. So how much should we rely on them? What kind of future do we want? Hannah Fry takes us on a tour of the good, the bad and the downright ugly of the algorithms that surround us. In Hello World she lifts the lid on their inner workings, demonstrates their power, exposes their limitations, and examines whether they really are an improvement on the humans they are replacing. 'Wise, sharp and witty, the definitive guide to living in the age of social media, algorithms and automation.' Adam Rutherford

Hannah Fry (Author), Hannah Fry (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rubik’s Cube: How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube, Including Rubik’s Cube Algorithms

If you want to impress your family and friends by solving the Rubik's Cube while staying calm and collected, then keep reading.... The Rubik's Cube seems like an innocent, colorful, and perfect gift for kids, something that will keep them busy for hours on end... Until you're faced with helping them solve it a few minutes later. That's when you realize the fiendish difficulty involved and feel a rising sense of panic as your plan backfires. Does it sound familiar? Rubik's Cube: How to Solve a Rubik's Cube, Including Rubik's Cube Algorithms includes: - An easy-to-follow step-by-step guide with full-color images so you can solve the Rubik's Cube with ease - A detailed explanation on how the pieces fit and move together - Secret maneuvers the expert solvers don't want you to know about - maneuvers that will allow you to move any given piece to any position on the cube without perturbing everything else - Links to exclusive accompanying videos made for this audiobook only that you can watch if you ever get stuck - Possibly the easiest way to solve the Rubik's Cube - And much more! If you've tried solving the Rubik's Cube before but not been able to, it's not your fault. In fact, even if you've been looking for guidance, you may have come across Rubik's Cube guides that have obtuse or incomplete instructions. As mentioned earlier, when you get this amazing guide, you will also have access to accompanying videos that will prove that this remarkable solving method works - from start to finish (every step of the way).

Clark Cornell (Author), Angela Julian (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mathematics Audiobooks in Science & Technology