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Aftermath: The Life-Changing Math That Schools Won't Teach You
Whether you loved or loathed high-school math, Aftermath will change how you think about math—and life.
Forget rote math’s dry formulas and abstract symbols. This book illuminates the fascinating math ideas that are essential to you and your loved ones—ideas totally ignored in school.
“In the age of AI and data, we badly need to rethink the way we teach math in U.S. schools. Dintersmith has joyfully illustrated how we can pull the subject out of irrelevance in the eyes of our students—a must read for teachers and parents alike.”
—Steve Levitt, Co-Author, Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics
Forget rote math’s dry formulas and abstract symbols. This book illuminates the fascinating math ideas that are essential to you and your loved ones—ideas totally ignored in school.
“In the age of AI and data, we badly need to rethink the way we teach math in U.S. schools. Dintersmith has joyfully illustrated how we can pull the subject out of irrelevance in the eyes of our students—a must read for teachers and parents alike.”
—Steve Levitt, Co-Author, Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics
- GenresNonfiction
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 24, 2026
I found the author's life story on his experience with
math eye-opening and compelling. But had a hard time getting through the dense subsequent text. I plan to give this another read when I have more time for concentration. I suspect that other readers less cowed by math won't have my challenges with the book.
math eye-opening and compelling. But had a hard time getting through the dense subsequent text. I plan to give this another read when I have more time for concentration. I suspect that other readers less cowed by math won't have my challenges with the book.
June 10, 2026
This book is borderline awful besides the premise that math literacy is a very needed tool in everyone’s life. Yes, these specific subjects in math should be taught more frequently, absolutely.
But here’s where this book falls short. First, the math required to be able to do probability and statistics is taught in the years leading up to when a student would normally take it. You can’t just say “WE NEED TO TEACH THIS TO EVERYONE” when the majority of the people you want to teach don’t have the necessary skills to be able to learn it. Second, while this book breaks down many different subjects, most of them are all taught in one subject, statistics. A statistics class usually covers estimation, probability, optimization (and of course statistics itself).
Here’s where the book really made me mad. The author wants to try and replace the math currently being taught with these subjects. When he goes into each subject, he doesn’t actually show how it should be taught. He just wants to spew a bunch of different statistics and tidbit facts to try and prove his point. Again, this is fine if the main goal of the book is to promote mathematical literacy, but it’s not. The author wants to change the whole math curriculum. And not once did I see him actually trying to go about showing how to actually teach these skills.
There’s a reason why students go through that natural progression of math classes. It’s because the ideas and skills naturally build on top of each other. By the time a student graduates high school, they will most likely have taken pre calculus, calculus, or college algebra. These classes provide all of the necessary skills this book is trying to get across. So what’s the point of this book? The hope is that when students leave or when they are finished with their math classes, they will have the necessary critical thinking skills to be able to question and try to understand many of the things this book tries to get you to question and understand.
Out of all of this, let’s say all we do is add a mathematical literacy class. Is that class going to be mandatory? Is that class going to change how students feel towards math? Doubtful. The kids that do take it will treat it like they do most classes.
But here’s where this book falls short. First, the math required to be able to do probability and statistics is taught in the years leading up to when a student would normally take it. You can’t just say “WE NEED TO TEACH THIS TO EVERYONE” when the majority of the people you want to teach don’t have the necessary skills to be able to learn it. Second, while this book breaks down many different subjects, most of them are all taught in one subject, statistics. A statistics class usually covers estimation, probability, optimization (and of course statistics itself).
Here’s where the book really made me mad. The author wants to try and replace the math currently being taught with these subjects. When he goes into each subject, he doesn’t actually show how it should be taught. He just wants to spew a bunch of different statistics and tidbit facts to try and prove his point. Again, this is fine if the main goal of the book is to promote mathematical literacy, but it’s not. The author wants to change the whole math curriculum. And not once did I see him actually trying to go about showing how to actually teach these skills.
There’s a reason why students go through that natural progression of math classes. It’s because the ideas and skills naturally build on top of each other. By the time a student graduates high school, they will most likely have taken pre calculus, calculus, or college algebra. These classes provide all of the necessary skills this book is trying to get across. So what’s the point of this book? The hope is that when students leave or when they are finished with their math classes, they will have the necessary critical thinking skills to be able to question and try to understand many of the things this book tries to get you to question and understand.
Out of all of this, let’s say all we do is add a mathematical literacy class. Is that class going to be mandatory? Is that class going to change how students feel towards math? Doubtful. The kids that do take it will treat it like they do most classes.
April 13, 2026
Ted is a personal friend and it is clear he actually should be in charge of our country with his ability to see where we have screwed up so many aspects from education, to politics, to voting, to defense spending, to business decisions and more. He is trying to make the point that Math has been horribly misused and miss-taught leading to massive waste, poor results, unnecessary frustrations and missed opportunity to teach children how to create, think, apply logic and solve problems. I have to say I totally agree with him and like most people had no idea what poor paths we have gone down as a nation.
I was like a fortunate few who found it relatively easy to follow the rote path and score well on standardized tests allowing access to Ivy League education. As a Math major, I took many high level esoteric classes where I learned a process and how to regurgitate it back successfully without really gaining anything of value. Once I went into a financial career it turned out I never used or needed anything beyond basic Algebra wasting lots of time and effort on Calculus and bizarre advanced math subjects. In retrospect I would have much preferred learning more about prediction, statistics, probability, game theory, optimization and decision making which were all touched on lightly but not to the depth they deserved.
I was like a fortunate few who found it relatively easy to follow the rote path and score well on standardized tests allowing access to Ivy League education. As a Math major, I took many high level esoteric classes where I learned a process and how to regurgitate it back successfully without really gaining anything of value. Once I went into a financial career it turned out I never used or needed anything beyond basic Algebra wasting lots of time and effort on Calculus and bizarre advanced math subjects. In retrospect I would have much preferred learning more about prediction, statistics, probability, game theory, optimization and decision making which were all touched on lightly but not to the depth they deserved.
March 24, 2026
Journal of a live mind. Dintersmith uses the math that we didn't necessarily learn in school to address a kaleidoscope of issues. Dry topics like statistics, optimization and game theory are given starring roles in addressing topics like covid, the fall of Lehman, and AI.
June 9, 2026
Went in expecting more math, but instead found a kind of common sense manifesto. I’ve read other books that covered statistics/game theory/etc in more detail and many of the real life examples are familiar from Pushkin Podcasts like Revisionist History, Cautionary Tales and Against the Rules (all recommended), but I liked how it was all put together. Also, I found it to be refreshingly blunt about some of the asinine decisions made based on bad math. Highly recommended
June 6, 2026
A Compelling Case for Relevance
From the moment I read the excerpt, I could not put this book down. This is about much more than math - it’s filled with relevant stories and examples of how math affects every part of life, and the failure of the US education system to teach the application of math rather than solving senseless equations.
From the moment I read the excerpt, I could not put this book down. This is about much more than math - it’s filled with relevant stories and examples of how math affects every part of life, and the failure of the US education system to teach the application of math rather than solving senseless equations.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews