Common sense mathematics

Cover
Title page
Copyright
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Preface to the First Edition
Chapter 1. Calculating on the Back of an Envelope
	1.1. Hailing a ride
	1.2. How many seconds?
	1.3. Heartbeats
	1.4. Calculators
	1.5. Millions of trees?
	1.6. Carbon footprints
	1.7. Kilo, mega, giga
	1.8. Exercises
Chapter 2. Units and Unit Conversions
	2.1. Rate times time equals distance
	2.2. The MPG illusion
	2.3. Converting currency
	2.4. Unit pricing and crime rates
	2.5. The metric system
	2.6. Working on the railroad
	2.7. Scientific notation, milli and micro
	2.8. Carpeting and paint
	2.9. Exercises
Chapter 3. Percentages, Sales Tax and Discounts
	3.1. The federal budget
	3.2. Red Sox ticket prices
	3.3. The 1+ trick
	3.4. Exploiting the 1+ trick
	3.5. Large and small percentages
	3.6. Percentage points
	3.7. Percentiles
	3.8. Exercises
Chapter 4. Inflation
	4.1. Red Sox ticket prices
	4.2. Inflation is a rate
	4.3. The Consumer Price Index
	4.4. More than 100 %
	4.5. How much is your raise worth?
	4.6. The minimum wage
	4.7. Inflation history
	4.8. Exercises
Chapter 5. Average Values
	5.1. Average test score
	5.2. Grade point average
	5.3. Improving averages
	5.4. The Consumer Price Index
	5.5. New car prices fall …
	5.6. An averaging paradox
	5.7. Exercises
Chapter 6. Income Distribution — Spreadsheets, Charts and Statistics
	6.1. Salaries at Wing Aero
	6.2. What if?
	6.3. Using software
	6.4. Median
	6.5. Bar charts
	6.6. Pie charts
	6.7. Histograms
	6.8. Mean, median, mode
	6.9. Computing averages from histograms
	6.10. The bell curve
	6.11. Margin of error
	6.12. Exercises
Chapter 7. Electricity Bills and Income Taxes — Linear Functions
	7.1. Rates
	7.2. Reading your electricity bill
	7.3. Linear functions
	7.4. Linear functions in a spreadsheet
	7.5. Which truck to rent?
	7.6. Energy and power
	7.7. Federal payroll taxes
	7.8. Exercises
Chapter 8. Climate Change — Linear Models
	8.1. Climate change
	8.2. The greenhouse effect
	8.3. How good is the linear model?
	8.4. Regression nonsense
	8.5. Exercises
Chapter 9. Compound Interest — Exponential Growth
	9.1. Money earns money
	9.2. Exploring exponential growth with a spreadsheet
	9.3. Depreciation
	9.4. Doubling times and half-lives
	9.5. Exponential models
	9.6. “Exponentially”
	9.7. Exercises
Chapter 10. Borrowing and Saving
	10.1. Debit and credit cards
	10.2. Can you afford a mortgage?
	10.3. Saving for college or retirement
	10.4. Effective interest rate
	10.5. Instantaneous compounding
	10.6. Exercises
Chapter 11. Probability — Counting, Betting, Insurance
	11.1. Equally likely
	11.2. Odds
	11.3. Raffles
	11.4. State lotteries
	11.5. The house advantage
	11.6. One-time events
	11.7. Insurance
	11.8. Sometimes the numbers don’t help at all
	11.9. Exercises
Chapter 12. Break the Bank — Independent Events
	12.1. A coin and a die
	12.2. Repeated coin flips
	12.3. Double your bet?
	12.4. Cancer clusters
	12.5. The hundred year flood
	12.6. Improbable things happen all the time
	12.7. Exercises
Chapter 13. How Good Is That Test?
	13.1. UMass Boston enrollment
	13.2. False positives and false negatives
	13.3. Screening for a rare disease
	13.4. Trisomy 18
	13.5. The prosecutor’s fallacy
	13.6. The boy who cried “Wolf”
	13.7. Exercises
Hints
References
Index
Back Cover