The Sum of You: The Six Forces that Shape Your Personality

by Alan Graham

Are you an explorer, an artist, a gambler, a scientist, an environmentalist, or a philosopher? In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Alan Graham argues that in fact these six different personality traits are present in all of us, to a greater or lesser degree. He provides a number of practical questionnaires and exercises which will help us to understand ourselves. Although we don't realize it, these six different personality styles are underpinned by our approach to and understanding of mathematics. Some if this knowledge is innate in all of us, some of it is learned in school, and some of it you may not learn until you read this remarkable book.

254 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2011

Reviews

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The personality type questionnaire at the beginning of this book is just a pretext to introduce the history and ideas relating to science in general and mathematics in particular. Our personality and interests affect which mathematical ideas we are naturally attracted to and what approach we prefer when solving mathematical problems.

The book invites us to see the world through the eyes of six different personality types: explorer, artist, gambler, scientist, environmentalist and philosopher. Each chapter is dedicated to one of these types and will make you think about counting and measuring, ratio and proportion, patterns and chaos, betting chances and coincidences, probability distributions, cryptography, proof and mathematical modelling.

For many people the idea of reading a book about maths is a daunting prospect. One way of making maths more attractive is to focus on the aspects that match our interests. The book explores both practical and curious questions that you may be wondering about. It also encourages you to explore approaches different from your natural preference by changing your “thinking hat” and perspective.
I liked the book intent, its simple approach, easy to understand language, the inclusion of interesting historical backgrounds of famous scientists, the end of chapter quizzes and practical examples for you to try (and their explanations).

Along the path I learned: how to read Egyptian number hieroglyphs, the story of Pythagoreans “unspeakable” numbers (irrational), what is a googolplex (not the corporation headquarters!), the link between twanging a ruler and musical harmonies, how easy it is to be fooled by half-full glass, how Benford’s Law helped to identify fraud cases, binomial distribution and family offspring combinations, that Ada Lovelace (nee Byron) was the first computer programmer (Yay!), etc.

Favourite quotes:

“Being curious is being alive”

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas - George Bernard Shaw”