Want to go? Check it out!

Last year, I had my trusty video camera with me, plus a few whiteboards and markers. So I asked attendees: How Do Writers Use Math? Of course, this creative bunch had a lot to say. Take a look!

If you want to know how to pump up your math skills for your writing business, check out my book, Math for Writers. It’s full of great ideas on how to tell a better story, get published and make more money.

As a writer, how do you use math? Can you think of any ideas that my colleagues didn’t mention? Learn more from my book Math for Writers, buy it here today!

The post How Do Writers Use Math? appeared first on Math for Grownups.

3.1415926

And that’s the longest expression of pi we’ve seen in 100 years on Pi Day.

So forget making pies. We here at Math for Grownups are going to be celebrating bigger! And better! From today through midnight on Pi Day (that’s this Saturday, by the way), you’ll have a chance to win great prizes!

π Plates

I’m thrilled to partner with Uncommon Goods, one of my most favorite online retailers for unique gifts and crafts, to offer one lucky winner a set of these clever pie plates. (“i eight sum pi,” they say.)

T-shirt

I designed this shirt just for this celebration. You’ll want to remember this momentous occasion — you know, share it with your grandchildren. The t-shirt is 100% cotton, and you can order it in standard or ladies cut.

Mug

Have a little Pi Day with your coffee or tea? Sip away, while letting your math geek flag fly!

Math for Grownups and Math for Writers

Of course, some lucky winner will take home one of my books Math for Grownups or Math for Writers.

Free Online Learning

And last, but not least, I’ll be offering one person the opportunity to take my new online course, “Stats for Writers,” at no charge.

So how can you win? If you already receive my newsletter, you are already in the drawing. If you’re haven’t signed up? Just complete the form below. After midnight on March 14, I’ll have my computer randomly select the winners. I’ll post their names here and contact them directly.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter, and get a bonus, just because! My guide to overcoming math anxiety: Multiply Your Math Moxie: A Painless Guide to Overcoming Math Anxiety.

Let’s get this Pi Day party started! Sign up below!

The post Get the Party Started: Celebrate Pi Day! appeared first on Math for Grownups.

Only science writers need math, right?

So yeah, science writers are most likely going to geek out on statistical analysis or a super-cool line graph. But lots of us writers need math to help us rise to the tops of our fields. It’s no secret that I believe this. I wrote a book about it. 

In fact, for some writers — like business or health reporters — math is a pretty important skill. But even fiction writers can use a dose of math now and then. Let me break it down for you.

Business Writers

If your beat is businesses, you are probably pretty comfortable with the math that companies use to assess their financial health. This means understanding a little bit about percentages and statistical analysis. You know how to read an annual report, including the charts and graphs that illustrate what the company is trying to say.

At the same time, you probably have a healthy dose of skepticism, You know that statistics can be misleading. To really analyze a company’s status, you need to crunch the numbers yourself. Or at least question where they came from.

Health Writers

It seems that most health stories in magazines and newspapers hinge on a recent study or report. It’s clear when the writer and editor get the math behind that research — and when they don’t. If you’re a health writer, you know how to use those numbers so that your readers are not misled.

This means understanding something about sample size, or when a study’s sample is too small or just right. You also know to ask for the study itself, instead of depending only on the summary or (worse) a press release written by a PR person who doesn’t have a background in that field.

Book Authors

Whether you ghostwrite or pen books using your own name, a little bit of math can go a long way to being sure that you’re on the road to an actual book and making a little money. Even fiction writers can use math in this way.

You use formulas in a spreadsheet to help count down your words and stay on deadline. You use statistical analysis to demonstrate to a potential publisher or agent that people want to read your book. Your platform is not only based on the number of Twitter followers you have, but also how well your fans engage with you on social media.

So even if you were promised no math in your chosen career as a writer, a little bit of math can help. Thankfully, you won’t need a math degree or even a college statistics refresher to master these computations. Clearly you’re smart enough. You’re a writer!

Photo Credit: Toncu via Compfight cc

Need to brush up on your math skills? Check out my book, Math for Writers: Tell a Better Story, Get Published and Make More Money. And be on the lookout for my upcoming online statistics course for writers and journalists. In the meantime, if you have any questions, ask them in the comments section!

The post Math: It’s Not Just for Science Writers appeared first on Math for Grownups.

And I hope you’ll spend a few moments celebrating your own wins. (Share them in the comments section, so we can all cheer for you!)

Publication of Math for Writers

I had plans for this book since Math for Grownups published in 2011. Fear and a lot of anxiety kept me from my goal for a long time, but I finally pulled it together and got down to work. The writers I know are such smart people, and I wanted to give you all a little boost of confidence in your math abilities. As the subtitle says, with math writers can tell a better story, get published and make more money.

I’m also really proud that I self-published Math for Writers. I knew that finding a publisher would be tricky, and I wanted the autonomy of making my own decisions. It’s been a really amazing process, and I couldn’t have done it without the help of three folks: Jennifer Lawler, development editor; Sandra Hume, copy editor; and Caitlin Proctor of Design Cat Studios, who designed the cover. I highly recommend them all!

Redesign of www.mathforgrownups.com

As my reach expanded to writers and parents and teachers, I decided to put a new face on the Math for Grownups website. And with that redesign, I added more content, like quizzes, the Math Manifestoand even video. I also created a cool free gift to subscribers: a guide to overcoming math anxiety. (If you haven’t snagged yours, be sure to sign up in the bright yellow box on the right!)

Again, I owe a big debt to someone who is much smarter than I. Patrick McCarty of evolv design has been my designer for years and years. I asked for pops of color and a playful look — and that’s exactly what he gave me. Thanks, Patrick!

Named one of GO Magazine’s 100 Women We Love in 2014

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out about this honor! Yep, that’s me, up there with Lily Tomlin, Robin Roberts, Mary Lambert and Ellen Page. Each year, GO chooses 100 lesbians who are making waves. To be on this list means more than just personal recognition — though that’s pretty darned cool! The best part was sharing the math message to a generation of women: girls can do math! (Check out my profile in the magazine.)

Hired a Virtual Assistant

This was a huge step. I’ve been a one-girl shop since I started out on my own in 2005. But with all of my big ideas, I knew I needed to step things up. Kelly Case with Time on Hand Services has been a god-send. Since the spring, she’s hanlded all of the Math at Work Monday interviews, and in the fall, she took over the newsletter. Look for her name to show up more in 2015! I’m so glad to have her on my tiny team of two.

Began Producing Video Online

Perhaps the most fun I’ve had this year is writing and producing my own video. The Math Manifesto series has been a blast. I’ve been writing math video scripts for several years, but this was my first chance to strike out on my own. And while I cringe a little seeing my face and hearing my voice, I feel really great about this accomplishment. The point is to ratchet down the anxiety and demonstrate how simple the math can be. (And sometimes I have to ratchet down my own anxiety about being on camera!)

Coming in 2015

So the best part about reviewing the previous year is the inspiration that comes. (Try it for yourself!) I’ve got big plans for next year, and I hope you’ll join me. Here’s a taste of what may come:

• More video! I have a great new tool that I’m excited to use. Look for Khan Academy-like learning videos from Math for Grownups.
• An online stats course for writers. This has been in the works for a while. Stay tuned for the details!
• In-person speaking events. I’m showing up at a few writers conferences in 2015 (including the American Society for Journalists and Authors (ASJA) in the spring), and it looks like I’ll be working with public school teachers on implementing in-depth, project-based lessons in the classroom. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be teaching again!
• New resources — for teachers and for writers. I’m developing some special items just for these audiences, and I can’t wait to share them.
• A new book? This one is a little scary to announce, but I do have plans for two books. Most likely, only one will get done in 2015. Which one will be be? Not sure yet. (And I’m not spilling the beans about either one!)

Of course, I hope you all will stay with me throughout the next year. Invite your friends to subscribe, too! Math for Grownups is on the verge of something really great. Don’t miss out!

Photo Credit: jeff_golden via Compfight cc

Now it’s your turn. What would you like to see here at Math for Grownups? Please share your ideas with me, in the comments section to via email: laura@mathforgrownups.com. 

The post Celebrate Good (Math) Times appeared first on Math for Grownups.

I never was fond of the step-by-step process many of my math teachers favored. But by the time I reached high school, I figured out that math is pretty darned flexible. And in college, that lesson really took hold.

You may think that math is black and white, but honestly? There are many different ways to solve simple and complex math problems. And that’s what I explain in my latest video. Check out how you can be creative with your math solutions — and still arrive at the correct answer!

More videos are coming, so please subscribe to my YouTube channel: mathforgrownups.  Also, I hope you’ll share this video on Twitter, using #flexiblemath and post it on your Facebook page. Share the Math for Grownups love!

As always, I’d love to hear what you think. Ask your questions or share your feedback in the comments section. Were you surprised by anything in the video (like how you solved the problem I propose)? Do you have your own stories to share about how you learned to find your own way to answers? Share in the comments section!

The post There’s More than One Way to Skin a Math Problem (Video) appeared first on Math for Grownups.

What is this and why is it so scary? Basically, I’ve challenged myself to write 50,000 words of a book by November 30. Most folks write novels — hence the name — but I’m writing non-fiction, which makes me a rebel. We’re a fully accepted part of NaNoWriMo, and I like that.

There’s plenty of math in NaNoWriMo, not the least of which is the word count. Each day, I write approximately 1,667 words or 50,000 words divided by 30 days. Because I’m writing in Scrivner (a great word-processing program for writers), I need to calculate my total word count per day. That means subtracting what I’d written previously from what I wrote today. And because in Scrivner, I can create chapters that are separate documents, if I pick up in the middle of a chapter and then start a new one during one writing session, I’ve got some more calculations to do.

Honestly, that little bit of number crunching isn’t all that interesting to me. It’s the dreaded inner critic who has caught my attention.

Near as I can tell, NaNoWriMo is not about producing the perfect book. It’s about getting out a first draft. Most of us fans of Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird use a more colorful phrase: Shitty First Draft or SFD. I hate these. With a passion. And so for years, I’ve completely avoided them.

Sure my first drafts aren’t great, but I usually weave a great deal of editing into the initial writing process. I do this because my inner critic freaks me out. And so the writing process for me is generally stop-and-go. Hell, I can’t even go until I have a good paragraph or two formed in my head.

This is not necessarily a bad way to write. But I’ve never liked the fact that I’m letting some bitch of an inner voice tell me what I can and cannot write at any given time. This is why NaNoWriMo has been a freeing experience so far. I don’t have time to ponder each and every word choice or search for the perfect metaphor or google to find when, exactly, Star Wars hit the big screen. The sheer speed of this process means I can’t give my inner critic any attention at all. I’m focused on getting out an SFD (or as I learned to call it, a “discovery draft”).

Many of us have inner math critics, too.

If you don’t feel like you can manage finding percentages, you might freeze up when the restaurant check comes and you need to find the tip. If you’re worried about what cubic measurements actually mean, you might buy way too much mulch.

In other words, our inner critics might be saying, “You suck at math!”

There are entire books written for writers with advice on how to ignore, kill or somehow disable the inner critic. This voice is sometimes considered a part of every writer’s process. We don’t think we’re stupid or crazy or inept because we have one. We learn to work with that critic or make her take a break in the corner.

And that’s what we need to do with our math critics. Because just like with writing, these bossy voices prevent us from taking risks with math. They reinforce the feeling that we’re hopeless idiots, when in fact we all possess the math gene.

So if you’re a writer who is actively avoiding statistics or reviewing studies or even accurately tabulating your NaNoWriMo daily word count, turn some of those terrific tactics for squelching your inner writing critic on that voice telling you that you cannot manage everyday math. 

Meantime, I’ll keep on writing like a fiend, knowing that there’s plenty of time in the months to come to polish, rewrite, and kill my darlings.

Are you a NaNoWriMo writer this year? I would love to hear about your book or project. And if you’ve got great ideas for telling any inner critic to take a hike, please share them in the comments section!

This is also a great place to plug my book, Math for Writers. If you’re a writer who feels a little (or a lot) nervous about math this is your ticket to ease and confidence.

The post The Inner Critic: NaNoWriMo and Math appeared first on Math for Grownups.

But I’m not at all afraid of ebola today. Not one little bit. Why? Math.

It’s difficult for ebola to spread. Really difficult. Like HIV, the ebola virus only lives in bodily fluids, including blood, saliva, mucus, vomit, semen, breast milk, sweat, tears, feces and urine. (HIV is only transmitted through four bodily fluids: semen, vaginal fluids, breast milk and blood.) Transmission can occur when infected bodily fluids come into contact with a person’s eyes, mouth or nose, or an open wound or abrasion.

Compare this to measles, which is transmitted through the air. The measles virus lives in the mucus lining of the nose. A sneeze or cough can release virus-infected droplets into the air. Breathe in the air with little measles droplets, and unless you’ve been vaccinated, it’s very likely you’ll see a tell-tale rash in a few days.

Since measles is highly contagious for four days before symptoms appear, a person can transmit the virus without even knowing he has it himself. According to the CDC, measles is so contagious that if one person has it, it will spread to 90 percent of the people who come in contact with that person (if they are not already immune, thanks to the vaccine).

It’s All About the R0

The way a virus is transmitted helps determine how contagious the disease is. And the big deal here is something called R0 or “reproduction number” (also called “r-naught”). R0 is the number of people that one infected person will likely infect during an outbreak.

Those of us of a certain age might remember a shampoo commercial that illustrates this perfectly.

Like Fabrerge Organics shampoo, ebola’s R0 is 2. When one person contracts ebola, it is likely that two others will become infected. Yes, those numbers add up — and they have in parts of Africa.

Now take a look at measles, with an R0 of 18. When one person gets measles, it’s likely that 18 people around him do too. Then each of those 18 people spread the virus to 18 more people. In one generation of this infection, 18 x 18 (324) have contracted measles. That’s compared to only 2 x 2 (4) people who will likely contract ebola in one generation of the infection. In fact, measles is still one of the leading causes of death in children around the world. According to the WHO:

Measles is still common in many developing countries – particularly in parts of Africa and Asia. More than 20 million people are affected by measles each year. The overwhelming majority (more than 95%) of measles deaths occur in countries with low per capita incomes and weak health infrastructures.

But measles is not a major threat in the U.S., and we all know why — the measles vaccine. Ebola has no vaccine, but a relatively strong health care system in our country and its very low R0 makes ebola a low threat, compared to other viruses, like HIV and certain strains of influenza.

The scary thing about ebola is not how quickly it spreads but how basic medical care can keep it from spreading. We have that basic care here in the U.S. Large swaths of Africa do not.

And along with a low R0, the ebola virus has a relatively short infectious period — about a week. On the other hand, HIV is infectious for years and years — many of those years while the infected person has no symptoms or does not even test positive on an HIV test. The relationship between time and infection matters, too.

You Should Worry About Other Things Instead

For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that each year, about 5,000 people under the age of 21 die in alcohol-related incidents, including car crashes, falls, burns, homicides, suicides and alcohol poisoning.

According to the Federal Reserve, Americans held $229.4 billion in consumer credit (outstanding household debt, including credit cards and loans) in July 2014.

The global sea level is rising at alarming rates, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Before 1900, these levels remained constant. Since 1900, the levels have risen 0.04 to 0.1 inches per year. But beginning in 1992, that rate climbed to 0.12 inches per year. This translates to much greater likelihood of flooding in coastal areas (including the neighborhood where I lived for 10 years).

And we should be concerned about ebola in Africa, mainly because we can do something about the higher rates of ebola infection and deaths there.

But ebola in the United States? Really, this shouldn’t be a worry for you. Let the math ease your mind.

Photo Credit: CDC Global Health via Compfight cc

The post Stop Freaking Out About Ebola (Because: Math) appeared first on Math for Grownups.

Can you explain what you do for a living?

I have my own business that provides administrative services to other companies.  These companies vary in size and may be located anywhere in the world.  Thanks to the internet, there is less and less need for your assistant to be in the physical office with you.  My clients enjoy the freedom of having a virtual assistant. They don’t have to provide office space, computer equipment, or benefits.  They decide how many hours they want me to work for them each month and then assign tasks to me at their convenience.  These tasks vary widely.  I do bookkeeping, email management, calendar management, blog management, proofreading, data entry, travel planning, transcription, customer service, email marketing, website design, and more.

When do you use basic math in your job?

I use math just about every day, for my own virtual assistance business as well as for the businesses of my clients.  I use math when doing invoicing, payroll, travel planning, and bookkeeping.  For instance, when reconciling credit card or checking accounts, I must use math to make sure the credits and debits match the bank statement.  When invoicing, I use math to make sure I’m charging their clients or mine the right amounts or percentages.  A customer of my client may agree to make three monthly payments to the client for a certain product.  I split the payment into thirds and charge at the appropriate time.

Do you use any technology (like calculators or computers) to help with this math? Why or why not?

Yes, I use the calculator function on my computer whenever I need to calculate long lists of numbers to prevent human error.  I usually do it twice to be sure I come up with the same answer each time.  I also use Microsoft Excel to keep track of credits and expenses for my clients’ check registers. Quickbooks is used often for the bookkeeping aspect as well.

How do you think math helps you do your job better?

I’m not sure that it helps me do it better, but it enables me to do my job.  I wouldn’t be able to invoice, do payroll, or keep books without the use of math.  Numbers are an integral part of our daily lives and work places.  And, where there are numbers, there is math.

How comfortable with math do you feel? Does this math feel different to you ?

I am extremely comfortable with math.  The type of math I use in my job is very elementary and basic for me.

What kind of math did you take in high school? Did you like it/feel like you were good at it?

I enjoy math very much.  In high school, I got As in math and was asked by friends to do their homework assignments for them.  In fact, I enjoy it so much I took math as one of my college electives because I knew it would be an easy A for me.

Did you have to learn new skills in order to do the math you use in your job? Or was it something that you could pickup using the skills you learned in school?

No, I didn’t need to learn any new math skills per se.  I just had to learn the different programs that I use to do the math, like Quickbooks or an online payroll service.

More and more writers, like me, are hiring virtual assistants. This allows us to focus on our writing, and for me, it means having a detail person on my team. Have a question for Kelly or interested in learning more about her services?  Check her out at www.timeonhandservices.com. Wondering how you can use a virtual assistant in your business? Ask in the comments section.

Photo Credit: Philippe Put via Compfight cc

The post Math at Work Monday: Kelly the Virtual Assistant appeared first on Math for Grownups.

Who’s visiting your website? Is anyone reading your blog posts? Site statistics provide the keys to these questions. Many options exist for providing these statistics, depending on what site platform you use or how much depth of analysis you desire.

Your hosting provider will often show you the rough numbers in your dashboard or cPanel, such as “x number of visitors this month,” but that’s not helpful. That number is the equivalent of the counters people were enamored of a few years back. Seeing “302,455 site visitors since 1997” is not that impressive if you think about it. Site visitors is a raw number that may include the site owner herself, and tells nothing about how many of those visited multiple times.

I design and maintain WordPress sites, so I’ll be focusing on that platform, but you may find many of the same tools available on your site. If you’re not familiar with the terms used, I’ve provided a glossary of analytics terms as an exclusive free PDF download for you.

Jetpack

A suite of free features available on WordPress.com hosted sites, Jetpack offers website statistics. If you use self-hosted WordPress, you can link your account to a WordPress.com account and take advantage of Jetpack as well. At a glance, Jetpack shows you a graph of site visits, referrers, search engine terms, subscriptions, top posts and pages, and clicks. As you dig into the information, you will find an “About the math” section, where their logic is explained.

When should you use Jetpack? When you’re mainly interested in how many site visits occurred when. This number is useful if you want to determine the optimum day to post on your blog. If more people read it on Friday than on Monday, you can adjust the day you post accordingly.

Google Analytics

Available for free to anyone with a Google email address, Google Analytics can be quite daunting, but the wealth of information provided is astounding. Hooking your site up to the analytics tracking requires signing up at http://google.com/analytics. You must use a Gmail account for the requested email address. Google provides you with an ID code which you then insert into either all the pages you wish to track, or your site template. After that, wait about 24 hours to see the results.

When you log into the Google dashboard, you immediately see a graph of visits, with information on sessions, users, pageviews, pages per session, average session duration, bounce rate, and percentage of new sessions, plus a pie chart showing the percentage of new and returning visitors. Below that you see three sections: Demographics, including the language of the top ten visitors, their country or territory, and city from which they visited; System, showing what browser they used, what operating system (Windows, Macintosh, Android, iOS, Linux), and what service provider (Charter Communications, Time Warner, etc.); and Mobile, listing operating system, service provider and screen resolution.

While you could spend hours on each section alone, skip down to the Behavior section to see interesting facts about how people interacted with your site. (The Acquisition section is primarily useful to those purchase ads on Google AdWords.) You can learn what pages were visited the most, how fast pages were accessed, and the flow of the user’s behavior through the site. You can even click on Real Time and see who is visiting your site at that very moment.

When should you use Google Analytics? When you’re interested in knowing in detail who’s visiting your site, from where, how often. When you want to tweak your site’s content or architecture in answer to visitor patterns, to enhance the user experience. When you just love seeing all the numbers generated by your website.

WP SlimStat

This is a highly-rated free web analytics plugin for WordPress. I have only recently installed it, but am amazed at the range of information it provides, some of which isn’t provided by Google. A real-time log shows you who’s viewing your site at any given moment. The Audience section uses the term “daily human visits,” separating out people from visits by bot. Site analysis gives you at a glance how many content items your site has, as well as the number of comments. The Map overlay provides a fun way to see if you’re getting visits from around the world.

When to use WP SlimStat? When you’re a WordPress self-hosted user who wants a rich, broad array of statistics in an easy to use format.

I’d love to hear from you about your experiences with these tools. Please use the comments below to share!

Donna K. Fitch, MLS (Master of Library Science), MCert (Master’s Certificate in Web Design and Development), is the founder and CEO of Maximum Author Impact, creating beautiful WordPress websites, training webinars and other resources for indie authors. She is the independent author of Second Death, The Source of Lightning, and The Color of Darkness and Other Stories, newsletter web editor and member of the Horror Writers Association, and a member of the Alexandria Publishing Group, aimed at raising the level of professionalism among indie authors. In her day job, she is the digital communication specialist in the office of marketing and communication at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

Top photo credit: trekkyandy via Compfight cc.

Bottom photo credit: Donna K. Fitch.

The post 3 Website Statistics Tools Reveal Your Visitors’ Secrets (in a good way) appeared first on Math for Grownups.

It’s a big book. And parts of it are very dense, including sections that explain the anatomy of the brain and almost an entire chapter devoted to the probabilities of medical outcomes. But the rest of the book is quite narrative, with funny and relatable examples. This science and geek loved it all.

For me, the takeaways were in productivity and learning. It’s not fair to boil it all down to two categories, but I will. At the same time, I’ll point out how all of this relates to math, with a few quotes from Levitin‘s book.

What the Brain Does Well

Categorization

Turns out the brain is perfectly designed for identifying similarities and differences.

In the last few years, we’ve learned that the formation and maintenance of categories have their roots in known biological processes in the brain. … Theoretically, you should be able to represent uniquely in your brain every known particle in the universe, and have excess capacity left over to organize those particles into finite categories. Your brain is just the tool for the information age.

Where’s the math in that? Everywhere. It could be argued that math is the study of categories. Start with our number system. Positive numbers that are not fractions and decimals fall in the category of whole numbers. Add negative numbers to that group, and you’ve got integers. (And so on.) Or you can group numbers as prime and not prime or even and odd. Graphs of equations can be lines or curves — and some curves are parabolas, while others are circles. See where I’m going with this?

This is all good news. Because the brain is so excellent at forming and maintaining categories, your brain was made for math.

Discovery

But how can we make sure we remember all of these categories?

The last two decades of research on the science of learning have shown conclusively that we remember things better, and longer, if we discover them ourselves rather than being told them explicitly.

This idea has huge implications for math education. For the most part, approaches to teaching math fall in one of two categories (see what I did there?): telling and discovering. Most of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s learned math through the “telling” method. The teacher gave a lecture, demonstrating how to perform a skill, and asking students to practice the steps shown in the lesson. Discovery turns this process on its head, giving students the opportunity to figure things out on their own, even finding new ways to solve problems. When they can discover ideas on their own, students have a much better shot at remembering what they’ve learned.

Of course discovery is messy and difficult, which brings us to ways that our brain gets in the way.

What the Brain Doesn’t Do Well

Frustration

This idea from Levitin blew my mind. Apparently it’s a proven fact that people don’t manage frustration well. It’s why we procrastinate, and that feeling of frustration is rooted in our brains.

The low tolerance for frustration has neural underpinnings. Our limbic system and the parts of the brain that are seeking immediate rewards come into conflict with our prefrontal cortex, which all too well understand the consequences of falling behind. Both regions run on dopamine, but the dopamine has different actions in each. Dopamine in the prefrontal cortex causes us to focus and stay on task; dopamine in the limbic system, along with the brain’s own edogenous opiods, causes us to feel pleasure.

Then we play into this automatic system with two “faulty beliefs: first, that life should be easy and second, that our self-worth is dependent on our success.” So, when the going gets tough, we quit — shoot for an easier option.

Unfortunately, this is just something we need to fight against. And Levitin has some great strategies to offer. At the same time, I felt very validated in my instinct to choose low-hanging fruit, rather than reaching for loftier goals. That also goes for the math student who is immediately frustrated by assignments he can’t understand, and the grownup who always lets someone else split the restaurant tab.

Probability

For years I’ve struggled with my inability to internalize the concepts of probability, so I was really relieved to learn that my brain is wired this way.

Cognitive science has taught us that relying on our gut or intuition often leads to bad decisions, particularly in cases where statistical information is available. Our guts and our brains didn’t evolve to deal with probabilistic thinking.

No wonder I have to work so hard to understand the probability I’ll suffer from a medication’s side effects or even the chance I’ll win in Roulette. Unlike categorizing, my brain isn’t set up to have an intuition about probability. (This isn’t to say that others can’t find calculate probabilities quickly, of course.)

Of course much depends on our understanding of probability, including life-and-death situations, like choosing the right medical treatment. It’s important to think about these things in a clear and focused way. That’s one reason Levitin spends so many pages on something called FourFold tables. (More on those in a later post.)

I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Organized Mind. (No, you can’t borrow mine; I’ve been referring to it over and over since I finished reading!) It’s a great look at how we can maximize the things our brains do well and work against the tricks our brains play on us — to be better organized and productive, while learning and using math.

Photo Credit: dierk schaefer via Compfight cc

Have you read Daniel Levitin’s book? If so, what did you think? Share your comments and questions.

The post The Brain Ordered: A review of The Organized Mind appeared first on Math for Grownups.