Did you know that 3 billion people worldwide live on less than $2 a day? Or that an average of 39 people are admitted to hospital in Britain every year for injuries involving tea-cosies?
Numbers are peculiar animals. They can unlock secrets, split atoms, reveal the inner workings of people and machines, or draw patterns of jaw-dropping complexity and beauty. In the East, they have mystical significance – they can tell the future and are the key to the secret harmonies of the universe. Numbers can also make us angry, make us laugh or elicit tears.
Did you know that 3.7 million Americans claim to have been abducted by aliens?
The mileage driven by the average American car before it emits its
own weight in carbon dioxide: 10,000.
Number of people who could be provided with sources of clean drinking water
per year for the cost of a submarine: 60 million.
Numbers can reveal, but they can also conceal. Numbers can be convincing liars. This book encourages a healthy skepticism about those who would have us quantify the universe and all its minutiae, including our own humanity. We human beings are summed up, averaged out, and cross-sectioned by academics and officials in surveys and screeds of government statistics that rob us of our individual identities.
This little book is a collection of some of the most peculiar, bizarre, shocking or hilarious numbers we could find.
This book also offers a glimpse into the history of humanity's fascination with numbers and how our relationship with them ultimately reveals how we relate to each other and our world.
