In this lively volume, mathematician John Allen Paulos employs his singular wit to guide us through an unlikely mathematical jungle--the pages of the daily newspaper. From the Senate and sex to celebrities and cults, Paulos takes stories that may not seem to involve math at all and demonstrates how mathematical naivete can put readers at a distinct disadvantage. Whether he's using chaos theory to puncture economic and environmental predictions, applying logic to clarify the hazards of spin doctoring and news compression, or employing arithmetic and common sense to give us a novel perspective on greed and relationships, Paulos never fails to entertain and enlighten.

If you can slice a melon or make a right-hand turn, you can be a breakthrough innovator.
The title of this book, "Cause a Disturbance," says it all, and it most assuredly will cause a disturbance in the way you think about business: your business.
Everyone knows--and everyone talks about--how important innovation is in the competitive battle to find, delight, and keep customers, yet far too few achieve it. As Tencer and Cardoso explain, "There's a big difference between an occasional spark of innovation and an eternal flame." But the reality is different; most firms struggle to consistently innovate. All that can change. Kick-start your business with attitude. Cause a disturbance
Whether your business is in transition or simply looking for an innovative spark, give it a lift with "Cause a Disturbance." Within these pages you will learn how innovation can change your business in simple steps through The 90% Rule(R) a straightforward philosophy that drives you to constantly ask "What's the next 10%? What's the next product, service, or process improvement that will create a continuously engaged customer base and strengthen my brand?"
Cause a disturbance in the way you think about innovation as you open your mind to the possibilities--and simplicity--of being innovative every day

If you can slice a melon or make a right-hand turn, you can be a breakthrough innovator.
The title of this book, "Cause a Disturbance," says it all, and it most assuredly will cause a disturbance in the way you think about business: your business.
Everyone knows--and everyone talks about--how important innovation is in the competitive battle to find, delight, and keep customers, yet far too few achieve it. As Tencer and Cardoso explain, "There's a big difference between an occasional spark of innovation and an eternal flame." But the reality is different; most firms struggle to consistently innovate. All that can change. Kick-start your business with attitude. Cause a disturbance
Whether your business is in transition or simply looking for an innovative spark, give it a lift with "Cause a Disturbance." Within these pages you will learn how innovation can change your business in simple steps through The 90% Rule(R) a straightforward philosophy that drives you to constantly ask "What's the next 10%? What's the next product, service, or process improvement that will create a continuously engaged customer base and strengthen my brand?"
Cause a disturbance in the way you think about innovation as you open your mind to the possibilities--and simplicity--of being innovative every day

The 90% Rule synopsis: Opportunities grow businesses. Knowing which ones to capitalize on is what drives business success. In this milestone book, Tencer and Cardoso have integrated three fundamental principles of good business - leverage, process and entrepreneurial thinking into a pragmatic and powerful approach to business development. Years of hands-on research has shown them that the greatest opportunities lie in focusing on those that you are already 90% capable of. Full of captivating company examples and practical advice, this vital new resource shows you how to turn your opportunities into action. The 90% Rule is a practical, step-by-step action plan that lets companies tap in to their unique strengths and potential. It gives CEOs and their teams the requisite process to crystallize a growth strategy and then the tactics to implement it. Are you ready to turn your opportunities into action? Your competitors are.

In "A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market" best-selling author John Allen Paulos demonstrates what the tools of mathematics can tell us about the vagaries of the stock market. Employing his trademark stories, vignettes, paradoxes, and puzzles (and even a film treatment), Paulos addresses every thinking reader's curiosity about the market: Is it efficient? Is it rational? Is there anything to technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and other supposedly time-tested methods of picking stocks? How can one quantify risk? What are the most common scams? What light do fractals, network theory, and common psychological foibles shed on investor behavior? Are there any approaches to investing that truly outperform the major indexes? Can a deeper knowledge of mathematics help beat the odds?All of these questions are explored with the engaging erudition that made Paulos's "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" and "Innumeracy" favorites with both armchair mathematicians and readers who want to think like them. Paulos also shares the cautionary tale of his own long and disastrous love affair with WorldCom. In the tradition of Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" and Jeremy Siegel's "Stocks for the Long Run," this wry and illuminating book is for anyone, investor or not, who follows the markets-or knows someone who does.

What two things could be more different than numbers and stories? Numbers are abstract, certain, and eternal, but to most of us somewhat dry and bloodless. Good stories are full of life: they engage our emotions and have subtlety and nuance, but they lack rigor and the truths they tell are elusive and subject to debate. As ways of understanding the world around us, numbers and stories seem almost completely incompatible. Once Upon a Number shows that stories and numbers aren't as different as you might imagine, and in fact they have surprising and fascinating connections. The concepts of logic and probability both grew out of intuitive ideas about how certain situations would play out. Now, logicians are inventing ways to deal with real world situations by mathematical means,by acknowledging, for instance, that items that are mathematically interchangeable may not be interchangeable in a story. And complexity theory looks at both number strings and narrative strings in remarkably similar terms.Throughout, renowned author John Paulos mixes numbers and narratives in his own delightful style. Along with lucid accounts of cutting-edge information theory we get hilarious anecdotes and jokes instructions for running a truly impressive pyramid scam a freewheeling conversation between Groucho Marx and Bertrand Russell (while they're stuck in an elevator together) explanations of why the statistical evidence against OJ Simpson was overwhelming beyond doubt and how the Unabomber's thinking shows signs of mathematical training and dozens of other treats. This is another winner from America's favourite mathematician.