Street-Fighting Mathematics Takes the Guesswork Out of Guessing

August 10, 2010

MIT is offering a free book on basic mathematics that emphasizes the geometrical approach to solving problems and has the feel of early Greek mathematics.

Street-Fighting Mathematics: The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving was written by Sanjoy Mahajan, Associate Director of the Teaching and Learning Laboratory and a Lecturer in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT..

While traditional mathematics teaching is largely about solving exactly stated problems exactly. Life, however, often presents problems needing only approximate solutions.

"Too much mathematical rigor teaches rigor mortis," said R. David Middlebrook (California Institute of Technology). “This is Sanjoy Mahajan's way of saying, ‘Failure to make timely approximations leads to algebraic paralysis.’"

“Street-Fighting Mathematics teaches a crucial skill that the traditional science curriculum fails to develop: how to obtain order-of-magnitude estimates for a broad variety of problems," said Eric Mazur (Harvard University). "This book will be invaluable to anyone wishing to become a better informed professional."

A PDF of the book available for free. Mahajan explains his reasoning for offering the book for free and answers several questions from readers in a post on The New York Times Freakanomics blog.

Source: MIT Press; The New York Times (July 16, 2010)