'I wonder why I ever bothered with sex, he thought; there's nothing in this breathing world so gratifying as an artfully placed semicolon'

Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut

Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut

Marcus Sautoy

Thinking Better is a celebration of the art of the shortcut – and an encouragement to all of us, in our lives and maybe particularly in our business lives, to realise that thinking better is often more successful than working faster.

How do you remember more and forget less?
 
How can you earn more and become more creative just by moving house?
 
And how do you pack a car boot most efficiently?
 
This is your shortcut to the art of the shortcut.
Mathematics is full of better ways of thinking and, with over 2,000 years of knowledge to draw on, Oxford mathematician Marcus du Sautoy interrogates his passion for shortcuts in this fresh and fascinating guide. After all, shortcuts have enabled so much of human progress, whether in constructing the first cities round the Euphrates 5,000 years ago, using calculus to determine the scale of the universe or today’s algorithms that help find a new life partner.
 
As well as looking at their most effective uses in history (such as measuring the circumference of the earth in 240 BC to diagrams that illustrate how modern GPS works) Marcus also looks at how you can use shortcuts in investing or how to learn a musical instrument to memory techniques. He talks to, among many, the writer Robert MacFarlane, cellist Naomi Clein and the psychologist Suzie Orbach, asking whether shortcuts are always the best idea and, if so, when they use them.

With engaging puzzles and conundrums throughout to illustrate the shortcut’s ability to find solutions with speed, Thinking Better offers many clever strategies for daily complex problems.

Reviews of Thinking Better: The Art of the Shortcut

    • Praise for The Creativity Code:
    • ‘What a wonderful, brilliant, joyous read! Marcus makes it seem so easy, and such fun, to begin to understand that which appears complex, frightening and beautiful, and the magic of being human’ Philippe Sands
    • ‘The Creativity Code is only partly a book about AI art. It is as much about how AI thinks and how it does mathematics — du Sautoy’s own special subject. And on these topics, he is thoughtful and illuminating’ The Times ‘Du Sautoy is […] the light-bearer, illuminating not only the work of coders and creators, but the mathematics of chaos that underpin art and our emotional responses to it’ Hans Ulrich Obrist
    • ‘Why could a machine one day not create a truly original work of art, write a moving poem, compose an opera or even discover a mathematical theorem? The answers, in this compelling and thought-provoking book by mathematician and musician, Marcus du Sautoy, can be found by breaking down what it actually means to be creative’ Jim Al-Khalili
    • ‘Fact-packed and funny, questioning what we mean by creative and unsettling the script about what it means to be human, The Creativity Code is a brilliant travel guide to the coming world of AI’ Jeanette Winterson

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