The triumph of numbers : how counting shaped modern life
The Triumph of Numbers explores how numbers have come to assume a leading role in just about everywhere in science, in the operations and s tructure of government, in the analysis of society, in marketing, in sports, and more
History
1 online resource (209 pages) : illustrations
9780393254273, 0393254275
930707840
1. A world of numbers
Numbers everywhere
Numbers in history
Numbers in the Bible : the sin of King David
Consequences of David's sin
2. New worlds based on numbers
Kepler's harmonic law
Galileo and the laws of motion
Numbers in the life sciences : does the blood circulate?
A first exercise in demography : how many people can the Earth support?
The need for life tables
A new world of numbers
Sir William Petty and political arithmetic
3. Numerology and mystic philosophy : scientists at play with numbers
What's in a name? : converting names into numbers
Numerology in science
A crusader against numerological superstitions
4. Numbers in the age of reason
Hutcheson's moral arithmetic
Hale's numerical plant and animal science
Thomas Jefferson : a life regulated by numbers
Benjamin Franklin and numbers
Franklin and Malthus
Franklin on numbers and smallpox
5. New uses for numbers
Numbers and measures
A concern with numbers in France : Lavoisier's essay on political arithmetic
Sir John Sinclair's census of Scotland
Pinel's medical numbers
Louis and the numerical method
New uses for numbers : innovations by Condorcet and Laplace
6. A deluge of statistics
Tables galore
Guerry's studies of crime
7. Statistics reaches maturity : the age of Quetelet
Numbers, number science, and Joyce's Ulysses
Quetelet's world of numbers
The budget of crimes
The reliability of statistics
Comte versus Quetelet : social physics, or sociology?
What did Quetelet accomplish?
8. Critics of statistics
Carlyle and Chartism
Dickens and statistics
The Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything
"Death's ciphering book"
Corresponding disdain
Facts and figures : the message of Hard times
9. Florence Nightingale
Sanitary reform : the evidence of the numbers
A passion for statistics