Living by Numbers : In Defence of Quantity

Steven Connor

ISBN 10: 1780238258 / ISBN 13: 9781780238258

Verlag: Reaktion Books Nov 2017, 2017

Beschreibung

Neuware - How do we really think about the world We may use words to tell stories about it or draw pictures to represent it, but one thing we do far more than either of those is make calculations of the things that are in it--and to do that we use numbers. Numbers give shape and texture to almost everything we feel, say, dream, and do, a fact that Steven Connor explores in this qualitative assessment of the quantifiable. Looking at how numbers play a part in nearly every aspect of our lives, he offers a fascinating portrait of the world as a world of numbers. Connor explores a host of thought-provoking aspects of our numerical existence. He looks at the unexpected oddities that shape the loneliest number--the number one. He looks at counting as a human phenomenon and the ways we negotiate crowds, swarms, and multitudes. He demonstrates the work of calculation as it lies at the heart of poetry, jokes, painting, and music. He shows how we use numbers to adjust to uncertainty and chance and how they help us visualize the world in diagrammatic ways, and he unveils how numbers even help us think about death. Altogether, Connor brings into relief an aspect of our lives so ubiquitous that we often can't see it, unveiling a rich new way of thinking about our existence.

Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 9781780238258

Bibliografische Details

• Titel: Living by Numbers : In Defence of Quantity
• Verlag: Reaktion Books Nov 2017
• Erscheinungsjahr: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN-10: 1780238258
• ISBN-13: 9781780238258
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Zustand: Neu

Über diesen Titel

Inhaltsangabe

Ideas about quantities, magnitudes and frequencies shape and give texture to almost everything we feel, say, dream and do. In Living by Numbers, now available in paperback, Steven Connor explores the many ways in which we live in, and by, a world of numbers. The book opens up for the first time the richness, variety and subtlety of how we do things with numbers and, just as importantly, how they do things with us.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steven Connor is Professor of English and Director of Research of the Digital Futures Institute, King’s College London. He is the author of more than twenty books including The Madness of Knowledge (2019) and Dreamwork (2023), both published by Reaktion Books.