Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin

I looked at the description of this book and it peaked my interest. I debated for a while whether it would really be as interesting as the table of contents and description implied. I finally decided that the simplest solution was to just go ahead and buy and take the chance. I was not only gratified that it met my expectations created by the description and table of contents...but the writing was unexpectedly very engaging. It turned out to be a great book and I'm glad I bought it. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.

a great addition to any intro physics course - training students to solve these type of problems provides them with a really useful quantitative skill that can be applied to many types of real world problems.

If you can do basic arithmetic with one-digit numbers - add, subtract, multiply, divide - you can be a math genius. Maybe not genius, but you can still blow the doors off most people, and build up a healthy amount of BS-proofing, just by learning how to apply the skills you already have. This book offers dozens of worked examples, using pretty much just the math you learned by sixth grade. Weinstein and Adam chose a format that's easy to pick up and thumb through. They present each poser on one page, with hints to help you get started. A few extra facts "to hang things on" appear at the back of the book: the sun is about 10^11 meters away, a billion seconds is about 30 years, things like that. Then, the next page or two after the problem works out its answer, often more than one way. For example: could we create a human chain from Earth to the sun? Well, the sun is about 10^11 meters away, and a person is about 10^0 meters from fingertip to fingertip with arms stretched out. (For back-of-the-envelope purposes, you can often skip the leading digits of numbers.) So, the distance from earth to sun is about 10^11 people-widths, but the Earth's human population is just under 10^10. Answer: We'd certainly come up short. Some questions, like that one, are silly factoids. Others have more pressing social importance. How much funding does a subsidized school lunch program need per year? How many acres of farmland would it take to fuel your car with ethanol? How much landfill area does your town need for the next decade? When political special interests start throwing numbers around to answer these questions, are they lying to you? Even if you don't have exact numbers to work with, the way you get the answer is what matters, and you know exactly what assumptions you've made. Then, when you get more facts, you can refine your answer. You don't have to be a nerd to command a lot of nerd power. Grade-school arithmetic (which the authors review), a few basic facts, and a bucket of common sense go a long way. This book, with its puzzle-solving format, can help you develop that skill. -- wiredweird

This is a great "hands on" book that teaches the art of making a quantitative "educated" guess based on just a few basic facts most people know (or should know). I found this book great reading and very educational. Recommended for anyone.

Somehow, guessing at numbers is unsettling, even though I've done it all my life. John Adam is a professor of applied mathematics, with a degree in physics. Larry Weinstein is a nuclear physicist. Their book is devoted to proving that intelligent guessing is useful and fun. The book lays out some general principles but its great strength lies in the interesting problems, a series of hints to help you solve each problem, and an interesting discussion of the pitfalls and triumphs involved. Three key points: estimate by powers of ten, break complex problems into simple steps and consider alternative approaches. The book includes an excellent appendix containing a few formulas and scientific concepts, together with some useful statistics. The pen-and-ink sketches are funny and to the point. Best of all, the Princeton Press maintains a site with new problems on a weekly basis; a recent question was how many golf balls would it take to encircle the earth at the equator. Hints included: a. What is the diameter of a golf ball? b. What is the circumference of the earth? The authors give several interesting hints at determining the circumference of the earth (if you don't know it), including the 24 time zones, the number of time zones in the US, the time it takes to fly from New York City to Los Angeles, etc. Brain stretching stuff, which is always good for you, and the publishers claim job applicants should be prepared for tests of their estimating abilities. The Chinese rights have just been sold, and we may face even more competition on that front as well. If you learn by doing, this book is a great way to improve your skills and have fun doing it. Robert C. Ross 2008