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How do you apply game theory to select who should be on your Christmas shopping list? What equations should you use to decorate the Christmas tree? Will calculations show Santa is getting steadily thinner—shimmying up and down chimneys for a whole night—or fatter—as he munches on cookies and milk in billions of houses across the world?
In The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus, distinguished mathematicians Hannah Fry and Thomas Oléron Evans demonstrate, with eminent clarity, how applied mathematics are so thoroughly interwoven throughout our everyday lives by explaining mathematical concepts through one very merry motif: Christmas. In their quest to provide mathematical proof for the existence of Santa, the authors take listeners on a festive journey through a traditional holiday season, wherein every activity, from wrapping presents to playing board games to cooking the perfect turkey, is painstakingly and hilariously analyzed. Because who hasn't always wondered how to set up a mathematically perfect Secret Santa?
Lighthearted and diverting with Christmasy equations, Markov chains, and matrices, The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus brightens up the bleak midwinter with a stockingful of mathematical marvels.
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Dr. Hannah Fry is a mathematician and complexity scientist from University College London’s Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis. Fry also regularly presents the Number Hub strand of BBC Worldwide’s YouTube channel, Headsqueeze. Her first TED talk attracted more than 500,000 views across all TED channels and evolved into her first book, The Mathematics of Love.
Mary Jane Wells (a.k.a. McAllister Lee) is a British actress, writer, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award and Audie Award–winning narrator. A graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, she held a recurring role on the BBC’s Half Moon Investigates and narrated the BBC Three television show My Children, which won a Scottish BAFTA.