What's the Use?

“Reading this book is like being empowered with special x-ray vision that lets you see the math whirring away at the heart of vital technologies all around. It takes you time-traveling too, showing how the “pure” math of the past has found its way astonishingly often into present-day marvels, from helping the FBI match fingerprints by computer to guiding organ donations to enabling posthumous appearances by Carrie Fisher in Star Wars movies. In short, it’s another Ian Stewart classic.”
 ——David Stipp, author of A Most Elegant Equation

“Science enthusiasts will enjoy Ian Stewart’s discussion of mathematical results, originally devised to solve esoteric problems, that have surprising applications to our everyday lives.  From computer graphics to climate change to kidney donations, he reveals the “unreasonable effectiveness” of abstract mathematics in the service of science and technology – a service as important as it is improbable.”
 ——William Dunham, author of Journey Through Genius

“Ian Stewart is math’s greatest ambassador. No other author writes with such ease, erudition and depth of understanding across such a wide range of mathematical fields.”
 ——Alex Bellos, author of Here’s Looking at Euclid