John Allen Paulos

John Allen Paulos (born July 4, 1945) is an American professor of mathematics at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a writer and speaker on mathematics and the importance of mathematical literacy. He writes about the dangers of mathematical innumeracy, ie the layperson's misconceptions about numbers, probability, and logic.

Early life Paulos was born in Denver, Colorado and grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he attended high school. After his Bachelor of Mathematics at University of Wisconsin (1967) and his Master of Science at University of Washington (1968), he received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1974). In an interview he described himself as lifelong skeptic. He volunteered for the Peace Corps in the seventies.

Career

His academic work is mainly in mathematical logic and probability theory.

His book Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988) was a bestseller and A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995) extended the critique. In his books Paulos discusses innumeracy with quirky anecdotes, scenarios and facts, encouraging readers in the end to look at their world in a more quantitative way.

He has also written on other subjects often "combining disparate disciplines", such as the mathematical and philosophical basis of humor in Mathematics and Humor and I Think, Therefore I Laugh, the stock market in A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market, quantitative aspects of narrative in Once Upon a Number, the arguments for God in Irreligion, and most recently "bringing mathematics to bear on...biography" in A Numerate Life.

Paulos also wrote a mathematics-tinged column for the UK newspaper The Guardian and is a Committee for Skeptical Inquiry fellow.

Paulos has appeared frequently on radio and television, including a four-part BBC adaptation of A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and appearances on the Lehrer News Hour, 20/20, Larry King, and David Letterman.

In 2001 Paulos taught a course on quantitative literacy for journalists at the Columbia University School of Journalism. The course stimulated further programs at Columbia and elsewhere in precision and data-driven journalism.

His long-running "ABCNews.com" monthly column Who's Counting deals with mathematical aspects of stories in the news. All the columns over a 10- year period are archived here. 2003: AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Award for promoting the public understanding of science and technology 2002: University Creativity Award at Temple University 1994: Folio Award for the article Counting on Dyscalculia which appeared in Discover Magazine in 1994

Works

(British edition titled A Mathematician Plays the Market)

Potpourri of Writings "He Conquered the Conjecture", essay by Paulos on Grigory Perelman from The New York Review of Books Metric Mania Measuring Bacteria With a Yardstick Romantic Crushes and Bayes Theorem Stories vs. Statistics, NYT Opinionator piece