Humble Pi takes us on a tour of the times when math, engineering, and programming have gone wrong, leading to disastrous or sometimes just funny results. The book covers a range of mistakes, including bridge failures, space exploration disasters, game show cheats, financial algorithms gone rogue, and so much more.
I pretty much loved this book from start to finish. I found it thoroughly fascinating and often hilarious. Parker has a great way with explaining technical subjects, distilling it down to layman terms while retaining his humor. Even on events I already know about, Parker's explanations provided a new and interesting take.
The book is organized so that similar themes are grouped together into chapters, but each incident is only a few pages long, so it never feels bogged down or boring. I found it best to read with the internet handy, so I could zip on and find out more whenever it interested me.
It's been a while since I've been this riveted by a nonfiction book. I was tearing through it, chuckling to myself and stopping only to look up videos of Michael Larson on Press Your Luck and Galloping Gertie as it came down. I'm so glad I happened across this book. It totally spoke to the inner engineer nerd in me. After all, the only thing more fascinating than how something works is when it doesn't.
Readaroo Rating: 5 stars!
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