Making Numbers Count: The Art and Science of Communicating Numbers

Books

How many hours' worth of songs are on your Spotify Wrapped this year? How much is your commute time really worth? How do you work out how likely you are to get Covid based on the official statistics? How do your viewing hours track against the most popular shows on Netflix? Whether you're interested in global problems like climate change, and understanding that the Australian wildfires destroyed an area twice the size of Portugal, or just grasping how few people have washed their hands between visiting the bathroom and touching your hands, this book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world. Until recently, most languages had no words for numbers greater than five. While the numbers in our world have become increasingly complex, our brains are stuck in the past. Yet the ability to communicate and understand numbers has never mattered more. So how can we effectively translate numbers and stats so that the data comes alive? Drawing on years of research into ...