Numbers don’t lie

Numbers don’t lie – The book has assembled a host of short, numbers-based investigations into important questions of the day. The author has stated that: “My goal is to demonstrate not only that numbers do not lie, but to discover which truth they convey,” writes author of this tidy, entertaining collection of brief inquiries into a host of hot-button topics: vaccinations, the malleability of unemployment figures, the consequences of diesel fuel, the fossil fuels behind wind turbines, the environmental impact of cars and cell-phones, and the realities of Brexit. Regarding the last, the author writes that the U.K. has become “another has-been power whose claim to uniqueness rests on having too many troubled princes and on exporting costumed TV series set in fading country mansions staffed with too many servants.” Some of the more lighthearted material help take the sting out of the more formidable issues: why replacing kerosene with bio-fuels to power our airplanes would require the planting of 125 million hectares with soybeans; the ubiquity of synthetic fertilizer, without which more than 3 billion people could go hungry; the glacially slow pace of alternative energy. Though all of author’s subjects—from the “zoomass” of cows to the physics of triple-paned windows to the manual labor required to build the pyramids—are situated firmly within the realms of math and science, he also slips in cogent discussions of other relevant current-affairs topics, including the flawed yet enduring concept of American exceptionalism: “Politicians may look far and wide for evidence of it but they won’t find it in the numbers, where it matters.” Throughout, author’s viewpoint is balanced and each element of the text is fully backed by research as well as the author’s contagious curiosity. The Weekender