Dr Hannah Fry is a lecturer in the Mathematics of Cities at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at UCL. She works alongside a unique mix of physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, architects and geographers to study the patterns in human behaviour - particularly in an urban setting. Her research applies to a wide range of social problems and questions, from shopping and transport to urban crime, riots and terrorism.
Alongside her academic position, Hannah spends many of her days giving conference keynotes and taking the joy of maths into theatres, pubs and schools. She also regularly appears on TV and radio in the UK, most recently on BBC2's Six Degrees and in her own documentary charting the life of Lady Ada Lovelace.
How can I increase my chances of finding a partner like Hannah Fry?! (She is amazing)
don't expect this to be a book like Erich From's The Art of Loving it is about Mathematics of love Mathematics is the language of the universe! and yes, in theory, you can define what is love and how to solve its problems using only math. however practically, you can only implement math to situations that their data is achievable.
Hannah Fry created an entertaining and at the same time thoughtful page-turner. She said something very beautiful for the introduction "My great hope is that a little bit of insight into the mathematics of love might just inspire you to have a little bit more love for mathematics." I think this is enough to explain the main purpose of the book.
Contents: chapter 1: what are the chances of finding love? chapter 2: how important is beauty? chapter 3: how to maximize a night on the town? chapter 4: online dating chapter 5: the dating game chapter 6: the maths of sex chapter 7: when should you settle down? chapter 8: how to optimize your wedding? chapter 9: how to live happily ever after?
More funny than useful, but it has some interesting views on the matter. In case you need a smile today, here are some potential triggers:
[…] This man had set up a profile on the dating website OkCupid, which offers a profile section where you can outline certain ‘deal-breakers’: things that you can’t tolerate under any circumstances. His list ran to over a hundred, and was so extreme that it became the subject of a popular article on the website BuzzFeed. Under the heading ‘Do Not Message Me If’ were the following gems.
1. You needlessly kill spiders (checked) 2. You have tattoos you can’t see without a mirror (checked) 3. You discuss Facebook in the visceral world 4. You consider yourself a happy person (checked) 5. You think world peace is actually a goal of some sort (checked) (Oh well, that explains so many things…)
So all we’re really doing when picking a guy with a strong jaw, or a woman with beautiful plump lips, is giving in to our evolutionary desire for offspring. That’s why women wear lipstick. (Really?! Now I know why I'm not wearing one...)
Many things can happen when two people have sex for the first time: the start of a new life, the start of a new infection, intense mutual embarrassment and even, occasionally, pleasure.
"What I am, however, is a mathematician. And in my day job of teasing out and understanding the patterns in human behavior, I’ve come to realize that mathematics can offer a new way of looking at almost anything—even something as mysterious as love." "I wanted to write this book because I’m always a bit disappointed with the way that math is viewed so negatively by the general public, even if I’m not surprised that it has such a bad reputation." "To try to convince you of how insightful, relevant, and powerful mathematics can be, I’ve deliberately tried to choose the one subject that seems as far away from equations and proofs as possible and show how—even in that context—math still has something to offer. I want to share with you my favorite—mathematically verifiable—ways of understanding how love can work."
Being physicist and working as a mathematician, I was really trying to not using my math brain (80% of my thoughts, memories, and intuition) for analysis of my relation and love. It was in the stress of I do so, I will become more robot I already am, and my math-driven life will collapse to a mad scientist we all warned about. But reading this book gives me a different side, as far as I was 100% familiar with the theories, I find my freedom and chooses should start after the Math-driven decision or at least quantified to not get out of control. It is fun to read and fun to follow. I may write a general application later base on this book to come up with visualization or toolkit which can do the math algorithmically.
The only problem i have with this books is that it's too short! Absolutely loved this from the start to the finish. I was inspired to buy this after listening to Hannah's TEd talk here and also some other videos featuring her in this math-youtube channel I subscribe to called numberphile
I was expecting to see her deliver these nuggets of math wisdom in her witty and humorous style in the book (as she does in her videos) and boy did she deliver!
The book mainly deals with the traditional concept of 'love' and everything that goes into/comes along with it and how although it may seem chemical or intuitive, most things we feel are in fact governed my math principles: It could be compatibility score calculation in online dating websites, approaching someone at a bar using Nash Equilibrium, using General Algebraic Modelling Systems to determine, how many people should you send wedding invitations to, to name a few.
While I admit the book is not a sort of 'tell-all' that will give you a step-by-step algorithm on HOW to actually go about having a happily ever after (to be honest, this is a little bit what I was hoping for, myself), it does reveal a lot about human nature and how in spite of all the chaos and randomness, love indeed follows a few predictable patterns, that the author has managed to tease out using mathematical tools. This is similar to another book i loved: Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (a book about behavioral economics), but Hannah's narration and the fact that she doesn't shy away from mentioning some of HER dating disasters as well, is what won me over.
I do wish there was a bit more actual math involved and we actually get down to the nitty-gritty of it, but I guess I would have to read Dr. Hannah's scientific papers for that. But this also means you need not have a STEM degree to pick this one up, although if you DO have one, i believe you would enjoy this just a little bit more. (Something like A Brief History of Time)
Overall, this book gave me the feeling that this was a dinner coversation with Dr. Hannah Fry, and me - the forever alone single friend pouring out my woes - and the gentle eyed, red haired Dr, pretty much giving me the 'there are many fish in the sea' speech, except she has mathematically backed proofs which she is silently dumbing down for me (but in a nice way, not a condescending way).
It’s been a remarkably long time since I sat down and even have begun to think of why or how I would review a book, but here I am. It’s good that I am for this one, too, because this work of Hannah Fry’s is awesome. (I could stop here, but I won’t, as I’ll have to give some evidence as to why this work is awesome. Also, yes, I’m using the word awesome deliberately. I promise.)
Where to begin? This work is a great addition to her TED talk about the mathematics of love, which is also fantastic because there are different points of emphasis in the talk as there are here, but you could consider it an introduction or preface to the book! The talk itself introduces much of what is in the book as well. (I won’t go into great detail about what is in the book, but it involves mathematics and love 🤔)
This book makes some mathematical subject matter more accessible to a wide audience (myself included, because I am not a mathematician) and it is presented in an entertaining manner. While I’m certain that maybe I’m overlooking certain specific aspects of things, I’m not embittered because I don’t hold specific texts to an unreasonably high standard or give ratings based upon what I like, but rather is it good within the context of what it’s talking about and in the manner it’s presented in? In this case it’s a resounding “yes!”
I was entertained, it was easy to read, and I found myself looking certain interesting pieces up on the internet that were mentioned throughout. (: well done.
The author's tendency to push problems through a mathematical framework resonates with my passion, and thus, I immensely enjoyed pondering about the implications of the algorithms that I was already familiar with. This book is highly recommended to computer scientists who wish to find a new way to love their career.
Entretenidísimo libro que en apenas 100 páginas nos hace un recorrido por muchas zonas de la matemáticas, con el hilo conductor del amor. Bastante logrado: El capítulo 1: ¿qué probabilidades tengo de encontrar pareja? nos presenta la ecuación de Drake adaptada a encontrar pareja en vez de extraterrestres, nos cuenta cómo al estimar tendemos a compensar lo que sobrevaloramos con lo que infravaloramos para llegar a algo que suele tener sentido, al estilo de los problemas de Fermi. El capítulo 2, ¿hasta qué punto es importante la belleza?, nos habla de simetría y de que por lo general los rostros más simétricos suelen ser más apreciados. Nos cuenta el viejo truco del efecto señuelo y nos recomienda que para incrementar nuestras posibilidades de ligue vayamos acompañados de alguien parecido a nosotros pero ligeramente menos atractivo. En el capítulo 3, cómo maximizar una salida nocturna, se nos habla de equilibrios de Nash y los óptimos de Pareto, del algoritmo de Galey-Shapley y de cómo, a pesar de que puede parecer lo contrario, el sexo que inicia cortejo acaba mejor, en media, que el que lo acepta o rechaza. El capítulo 4, las citas por internet, habla del algoritmo de emparejamiento de OKCupid y de cómo conseguir un "porcentaje de match" de una manera coherente basada en las preferencias de los candidatos (y de cómo es recomendable usar medias geométricas en lugar de aritméticas en estos casos). MUY entretenido. El capítulo 5, el juego de las citas, habla de teoría de juegos, del clásico dilema del prisionero, de la paradoja del soltero disponible y de las subastas asimétricas. El capítulo 6, las matemáticas del sexo, habla de varias encuestas sobre el número de parejas de media que tienen hombres y mujeres, nos presenta la distribución potencial en luegar de la normal (si el número de parejas fuera la estatura, nos cruzaríamos de vez en cuando con gente del tamaño de la torre Eiffel) y nos habla de redes y nodos. El capítulo 7, ¿cuándo hay que sentar la cabeza? nos habla del problema de la parada óptima y de cómo podemos maximizar, en el amor y en la vida, las probabilidades de encontrar algo óptimo cuando vamos a ver cada cosa/persona una sola vez (la solución: dejar pasar el primer 37% (que es 1/e) y luego elegir el primero que supere a ese 37%). El capítulo 8, cómo optimizar vuestra boda, tiene una parte maravillosa sobre cómo estimar el número final de asistentes mediante un Excel y una algoritmo símplex para encontrar la distribución de gente dentro de las mesas que maximice la felicidad de los invitados. muy interesante. Por último, el capítulo 9, vivir felices para siempre, habla de umbrales de negatividad y cómo los estudios muestran que las parejas que callan y callan hasta que explotan duran menos en media que las que protestan mucho antes cuando algo no les gusta.
En conjunto sale un librito con un montón de información entretenida, que da pistas y enlaces a muchísima más información y que nos da un paseo bastante amplio por varios barrios de las mates. Me ha encantado.
El libro es una ampliación de la charla Ted de la autora.
He aquí un libro realmente curioso que llamó mi atención entre los títulos de divulgación científica. El hecho de haber descubierto una serie de libros de TED ya es de por sí muy prometedor, pero la temática de este ejemplar en concreto me atrajo demasiado.
Está dividido en pequeños capítulos, fácilmente digeribles debido a la sencillez del lenguaje matemático y a las simulaciones a pequeña escala. Fry habla de términos de relaciones románticos con los cuales todos hemos tenido algún contacto, y expone sus teorías de forma amena e incluso divertida. Se nota su dominio en la materia y a la vez su afán por una divulgación al alcance de todo tipo de lector. Acompañan ilustraciones y material gráfico que ayuda a la interpretación, además de suficiente bibliografía para el que quiera ampliar sobre la materia.
Si quieres descubrir cómo es mejor dirigir tus prioridades de cara a encontrar pareja o cuándo sentar la cabeza, este libro te da algunas claves en forma de matemáticas. Pero aunque no lo busques, encontrarás un estimulante método con el que disfrutar de esta ciencia.
I listened to the whole book on CD on a 3 hour car ride. It was entertaining, human, easy to understand, and enlightening. Some chapters were stronger than others, but very glad I picked it up at the library.
Quirky and interesting. I’m going to watch her Ted Talk on YouTube next. I’d heard parts of this book on Ted Radio Hour podcast as well, but the way the whole book is organized lends the matter additional charm.
First TED book I have read and will try to hunt down more. This is basically Hannah's TED talk, but the book goes into more detail. A funny and interesting read.
มันผิดตั้งแต่ชื่อละ น่าจะเป็น the mathematics of sex จะเหมาะกว่า แล้วก็ไม่น่าจั่วหัวว่า "เข้าใจความรักด้วยคณิตศาสตร์สุดเซ็กซี่" เลยนะ มันความรักตรงไหน และเซ็กซี่ยังไง มันไม่ใช่อ่ะกิ๊บ
Boyz! Someday I topped the mountain of fascination to mathematics by the tender age that wonder can work. By now the mountain appeared up in the sky so large that I'm on the landing point. Not for the love of mathematics but for the love it can be a short guide to geeks—a lifelong planning course though; what demands more elaborations for sure! This love is that "love" boys! Primitive— what we all really want to mean, the "heart" that never beat but we think so it does. In the social world not to be criticized and to do criticize we enlarge the meaning of love. It's the knock of the race surviving. One thing in this book missing is there's no rough sheet to keep your experiment data down. It's a book of tutorial too— a bit joke. Seriously! :P Anybody can try figuring out. Cause, Lady writer wrote this for the gents! My next target is then— Act like a lady, think like a man (Steve Harvey). This one might be seeing yourself outside the box (from the view of girls). A lot of geek days to cover and over.
I didn't necessarily find this book helpful but that's unfair to the book since I wasn't exactly looking or expecting it to help me. What I did find was a thoroughly entertaining non-fiction read that attempted to quantify something most people consider to be a gut feeling: Love. Now the whole book was not about finding the one. Though it did touch on the mathematics on how to improve one's odds to 37% by rejecting the right amount of people by a certain age.
The comparison of popularity on social media to sex partners and using that sort of analysis to statistically trace the spread of STD was interesting and logical.
The section on marriage lost me.
Using Game theory to pick up women was kinda funny. it looked at men and women as two competing sides and men had to impress a woman with gifts, but the gifts had to include the man or else the woman could just take the gifts and move on. So rather than buying her jewelry, which she could snatch and never talk to the man again, it would be best to take her on vacation, or out to dinner.
My favorite part of the book was when it covered John Nash. I am familiar with Nash Equilibrium, but I obviously first recognized the name from the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind when Russell Crowe strategized with his friends on picking up women. They couldn't all compete for the same woman because they would get in each other's way and then they would be rejected by her friends because no one wants to be a second choice. Here's the clip.
I would recommend anyone who wants to see something they here about on a daily basis in a different light to see if their library has a copy of this book they can check out. I wouldn't recommend buying the book though unless applying statistics to everyday life is your passion.
My second free Blinkist audiobook summary. To celebrate Valentine's day, they offered up a book exploring the mathematics of love, marriage, dating, sexually transmitted diseases and how many people to invite to your wedding. Fairly low-brow in places (if that's what you like) it has a tendency to assume that treating the search for a partner as a strategy to plan and follow is automatically the way to go - neither discussion of the Nash equilibrium, nor the section on game theory provided much in the way of criticism. Also, the scientist discussed in the first section sounds like a right dick - no wonder he can't get a date!
It gives you a foundation for the constructs it trying to explain. This book tried to pack inside as much as it possibly could. Because of that I couldn't keep up, while I was beginning to understand one concept, the book would move on to the next.
It is a short, quick read book. But I wished for something more.
A light, short, occasionally interesting read - sort of like reading a popular science magazine article in a waiting room. Yet again, a book from a TED presenter where I think the TEDtalk was better ...
This is not what I had expected after reading the very promising introduction. But I enjoyed the last two chapters, especially the second last chapter. I've applied similar strategy suggested by the author in planning a few events. No, not my wedding. Overall, it was a fun read.
This is a fun book and a quick read with a few interesting perspectives, such as the chapters on networks (and how sexual diseases spread) and the algorithms behind dating websites.
ספר נחמד. את רוב הדברים הכרתי כבר מספרים אחרים, אבל היו כמה חידושים ותובנות שאהבתי. הבעיה הגדולה שלי עם הספר הזה היא שהוא מאוד שטחי, ומתרכז בעיקר בנושאים של תורת המשחקים וסטטיסטיקה, שכבר מתחיל להימאס בגלל ריבוי הספרים בנושא. אם כבר זורקים נוסחאות או מדברים על מודלים - אז בבקשה לא להתעצל ולפרט, אפילו בנספח. היה נראה כאילו כל הקטע של המתמטיקה הוא סתם איזשהו קישוט דקורטיבי שאין לו משמעות. אני מבינה שהרצון הוא למשוך אנשים להתעניין יותר במתמטיקה, אבל לדעתי עבור מי שבאמת מתעניין (כמוני) הספר יהיה מאכזב, ומי שלא עד כדי כך מתעניין לא יטרח לקרוא את הספר הזה.
Зрештою, саме в цьому полягає математика - в абстрагуванні від реального світу, щоб відкрити приховані моделі й відносини, які інакше загубилися б під навалою невпорядкованих явищ, таких як "емоції" (с)
Very witty, very entertaining (is it wierd that I find mathematics entertaining?) Also these mathematical models are proven quiet accurate or as close to accuracy as can be, and can be applied in a lot of things like work and friendships. Hannah Fry is just so charming and smart, I love her.
Witty and humorous take on how statistics and mathematics can play a part in determining how to find a partner, how the "games" are played and how to not have fights at your wedding. As she says though, mathematics won't give you the answer to love, just a tool to predict the outcomes. I did appreciate "being a fan of Ryan Gosling movies" being used as a trait to find your soulmate, very personally relatable.
Absolutnie wspaniała książka. Po pierwsze-cudownie się czyta, Pani Fry świetnie przedstawia faktyczne wyniki badań, algorytmy, czy po prostu równiania mające szerokie zastosowania w wielu dziedzinach(nie tylko tytułowej miłości oczywiście). Wszystko to robi z odrobiną humoru, która według mnie jest perfekcyjna-tyle, żeby się lepiej czytało, ale jednocześnie też tyle, żeby nie tracić poczucia tego "naukowego" aspektu.
Szczerze, sięgnęłam po tę książkę bez większej inspiracji, patrzyłam po książkach na półce, żeby coś wziąć i zobaczyłam, że leży coś od TED-a. To była świetna decyzja, po tej książce nie tylko poczułam dużo większy pociąg do matematyki, ale również zainteresowanie książkami z serii "Małe książki o wielkich ideach". Naprawdę, jeżeli wszystkie są pisane w tak przyjemny i przystępny sposób, to chyba będę musiała zadbać, żeby trafiły w moje ręce