Four Ways of Thinking, David Sumpter
Four Ways of Thinking, David Sumpter
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Four Ways of Thinking
A Journey into Human Complexity

Author: David Sumpter

Narrator: Sam Woolf

Unabridged: 8 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2024

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

This program is read by actor Sam Woolf, known for his roles on Call the Midwife, Humans, The Crown, and The Witcher. He currently stars in the World War II drama We Were The Lucky Ones.

Acclaimed mathematician David Sumpter shares practical and insightful solutions for navigating the chaos and complexity of our lives

What is the best way to think about the world? How often do we consider how our own thinking might impact the way we approach our daily decisions? Could it help or hinder our relationships, our careers, or even our health?

As acclaimed mathematician David Sumpter shows, thinking about thinking is something we rarely do, yet it is something science questions all the time. He has spent decades studying what we could all learn from the mindsets of scientists, and Four Ways of Thinking is the result. Here he reveals the four easily applied approaches to our problems: statistical, interactive, chaotic, and complex. Combining engaging personal experience with practical advice and inspiring tales of groundbreaking scientific pioneers (with a tiny bit of number crunching along the way), Sumpter shows how these tried and tested methods can help us with every conundrum, from how to bicker less with our partners to pitching to a tough crowd—and in doing so, change our lives.

This program features a companion website, https://fourways.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

About David Sumpter

David Sumpter is professor of applied mathematics at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, where he runs the Collective Behaviour Research Group. Originally from London, he studied his PhD in Mathematics at Manchester and held academic research positions at both Oxford and Cambridge before heading to Sweden, where he lives with his wife and two children. In his spare time, he trains a successful 9-year old boys' football team, Uppsala IF 2005.An incomplete list of the applied maths research projects on which David has worked includes pigeons flying in pairs over Oxford; clapping undergraduate students in the north of England; the traffic of Cuban leaf-cutter ants; fish swimming between coral in the Great Barrier Reef; swarms of locusts traveling across the Sahara; disease-spread in Ugandan villages; the gaze of London commuters; dancing honey bees from Sydney; and the tubular structures built by Japanese slime moulds. His research has appeared in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Proceedings of the Royal Society, among many others. @soccermatics / www.david-sumpter.com


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mauricio on January 09, 2024

TL:DR True rating: 3.5. Book has a lot of interesting stuff, but buried in unnecessary fictional narration, which made it harder to read. Expectation: I bought the book expecting a "dry" pop-science (or rather pop-math-y) book, explaining the maths in intuitive ways with well thought out examples. Re......more

Goodreads review by Markus on October 24, 2024

Ich liebe die Art wie das Buch geschrieben ist. Die Geschichte und die Charaktere die um das Inhaltliche gestrickt sind, verleihen dem Buch einen auflockernden roten Faden, ohne dass es vom inhaltlichen ablenkt. Inhaltlich geht es darum, dass wir die Welt auf 4 verschiedene Arten beschreiben können.......more

Goodreads review by Emily on October 21, 2024

2.5. not sure if I’m just too dumb for this book, but I feel like he made things that I understand harder to comprehend. His stories were difficult to grasp because names are not easy for me to remember. I do not appreciate the flow of incredibly short chapters. i’m sure this is a great book for som......more

Goodreads review by Charles on April 17, 2025

82. It's not that this is revolutionary or anything, but it does give us some background into mathematical Concepts mathematicians their lifestyles. How they work together in Academia? I enjoy this because it's reinforces Concepts and the big reinforcement concept. I want to say here that this wasn'......more

Goodreads review by Wan on December 26, 2024

I  may not be mathematically inclined, but the author has certainly captured my attention by relating thinking patterns to numbers. David makes everything remarkably easy to understand, as if the numbers themselves are speaking to you. I am amazed by David's ability to convey his main messages throu......more


Quotes

Praise for Four Ways of Thinking

“Eccentrically fascinating and enjoyable.” —The Guardian

“I wish David Sumpter had been my maths teacher. I hated the subject at school. I hoover up his books now… This new book takes a step further towards the personal and everyday. It unpicks four big 20th-century ideas, all related to mathematical modeling of real-world behavior. Sumpter calls these approaches statistical, interactive (broadly meaning how interactions between individuals create patterns), chaotic (derived from chaos theory) and complex (from complexity theory). His particular genius is to apply these ways of thinking to relatable situations…” —The Sunday Times