The Calculus of Happiness
How a Mathematical Approach to Life Adds Up to Health, Wealth, and Love
Published on 11. April 2017
Book
Hardback
176 pages
978-0-691-16863-0 (ISBN)
Description
How math holds the keys to improving one's health, wealth, and love life What's the best diet for overall health and weight management? How can we change our finances to retire earlier? How can we maximize our chances of finding our soul mate? In The Calculus of Happiness, Oscar Fernandez shows us that math yields powerful insights into health, wealth, and love. Using only high-school-level math (precalculus with a dash of calculus), Fernandez guides us through several of the surprising results, including an easy rule of thumb for choosing foods that lower our risk for developing diabetes (and that help us lose weight too), simple "all-weather" investment portfolios with great returns, and math-backed strategies for achieving financial independence and searching for our soul mate. Moreover, the important formulas are linked to a dozen free online interactive calculators on the book's website, allowing one to personalize the equations. Fernandez uses everyday experiences--such as visiting a coffee shop--to provide context for his mathematical insights, making the math discussed more accessible, real-world, and relevant to our daily lives.
Every chapter ends with a summary of essential lessons and takeaways, and for advanced math fans, Fernandez includes the mathematical derivations in the appendices. A nutrition, personal finance, and relationship how-to guide all in one, The Calculus of Happiness invites you to discover how empowering mathematics can be.
Every chapter ends with a summary of essential lessons and takeaways, and for advanced math fans, Fernandez includes the mathematical derivations in the appendices. A nutrition, personal finance, and relationship how-to guide all in one, The Calculus of Happiness invites you to discover how empowering mathematics can be.
Reviews / Votes
"There are plenty of books about managing your wealth, but The Calculus of Happiness: How a Mathematical Approach to Life Adds Up to Health, Wealth, and Love, by Oscar Fernandez of Princeton University Press, sounds intriguing."--Matthew Partridge, Money Week "[E]ngaging... Readers are sure to get a sense of how content from algebra and precalculus can help inform us about important decisions that are almost universally relevant."--Jason M. Graham, MAA Reviews "Brilliant... Where Fernandez's book scores highly is that it goes beyond being a typical self-help manual for the numerate, by presenting example after example of how mathematical topics such as probability, game theory and exponential functions really do make sense of a world that can sometimes seem so subjective. It's also an easy-going analysis of those areas in life that get brushed under the carpet, to be attended to another day. Once you realise it all boils down to maths, you will wake up happier, wealthier and healthier tomorrow morning, and we have Oscar E. Fernandez to thank for that."Nick Smith, Engineering & TechnologyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
1 halftone. 13 line illus. 14 tables.
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-16863-0 (9780691168630)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Oscar E. Fernandez
The Calculus of Happiness
How a Mathematical Approach to Life Adds Up to Health, Wealth, and Love
E-Book
04/2017
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€15.99
Available for download
Person
Oscar E. Fernandez is assistant professor of mathematics at Wellesley College and the author of Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us. He also writes about mathematics for the Huffington Post and on his website, surroundedbymath.com.
Content
Preface ix Math Topics Covered by Chapter xiii I: A Healthier You Is Just a Few Equations Away 1 1 How Many Calories Should You Eat Each Day? 3 1.1 The Linear Functions Hidden in Your Diet 4 1.2 The Mathematics of Metabolism 8 1.3 Burn Those Calories! Work Those Quads! 11 1.4 The Calories Required to Digest Food 14 2 Live Longer (and Be Healthier) by Eating the Right Foods 20 2.1 A Game of Macronutrient Musical Chairs 20 2.2 How to Eat More and Be Healthier: Energy Density 29 2.3 Live Long(er) and Prosper with theWaist-Height Ratio 34 II: A Mathematician's Guide to Managing Your Money 41 3 Dissecting Your Monthly Budget 43 3.1 The Return of the King (the Linear Function) 44 3.2 To Expenses, and Beyond! 49 3.3 How Many YearsWill It Take You to Reach Financial Independence? 62 4 How to Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game 69 4.1 How to Make 15% a Year, Guaranteed 70 4.2 The Safest Investments 71 4.3 Quantifying Investment Risk and Return 73 4.4 Stocks, Bonds, and the "All-Weather" Portfolio 77 III: Looking for Love? There May Be an Equation for That 87 5 Finding "The 1" 89 5.1 What the Search for Aliens Can Teach You about FindingYour Soulmate 89 5.2 Why Hiring a Secretary Is Like Dating 92 5.3 The Stable Matching Problem 97 6 Living Happily Ever After with "The 1" 103 6.1 Your Relationship as a Dynamical System 104 6.2 Need Help Making a Joint Decision? There's an Equation for That 108 6.3 How Psychologists Use Math to Predict Divorce 113 Epilogue 118 Acknowledgments 120 Appendix A: Background Content 121 Appendix 1 123 Appendix 2 128 Appendix 3 130 Appendix 4 141 Appendix 5 143 Appendix 6 144 Bibliography 151 Index 157