The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus

Description

The updated edition of this dazzling, magical mathematical tour of the festive season with the most elegant mathematical solutions to your Christmas conundrums, from how to avoid a secret Santa disaster to how to win the festive family games. ____________ How do you apply game theory to select who should be on your Christmas shopping list ? Can you predict Her Majesty's Christmas Message? Will calculations show Santa is getting steadily thinner - shimmying up and down chimneys for a whole night - or fatter - as he tucks into a mince pie and a glass of sherry in billions of houses across the world? Full of diagrams, sketches and graphs, beautiful equations, Markov chains and matrices, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus brightens up the bleak midwinter with stockingfuls of mathematical marvels. And proves once and for all that maths isn't just for old men with white hair and beards who associate with elves. Maths has never been merrier. NOW WITH A BRAND NEW CHAPTER

Hannah Fry is an Associate Professor in the mathematics of cities from University College London. She is also the author of The Mathematics of Love, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus and Hello World. In her day job she uses mathematical models to study patterns in human behaviour, and has worked with governments, police forces, health analysts and supermarkets. Her TED talks have amassed millions of views and she has fronted television documentaries for the BBC and PBS; she also hosts the long-running science podcast, 'The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry' with the BBC.

Hannah Fry is quickly becoming the David Attenborough of maths. * Telegraph * A smart, witty, original take on the festive season, with calculations and theories to help you prepare and solve your Christmas conundrums. * The Sun * Just in case the charm and beauty of mathematical thinking has passed by some of your friends and family, they will be grateful for this slim volume in their stocking. The puzzles and games of Hannah Fry and Thomas Evans involving present-wrapping and Queen's Speech bingo are but an entry drug for heady passages about the natureof truth and game theory. * New Scientist * From the perfect Secret Santa gift to finally proving the existence of St Nick, a new book uses mathematics to crack the toughest festival conundrums. * Evening Standard * The broadcaster and author of The Mathematics of Love teams up with a mathematician and writer for this intelligent stocking filler ... sounds enormous fun. * Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller *