John Allen Paulos

Expositor Extraordinaire The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics presented its Communication Award to Professor Paulos in 2013. In its citation the JPBM wrote “Professor Paulos' books, columns, reviews, speeches, and editorials have for more than 25 years brought mathematically-informed ideas, information, opinion, and humor to a broad non-specialist audience." And In 2003 he received an award from the the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS recognition was for promoting the public understanding of science. "Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” from introduction to A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market "Mathematics is no more computation than literature is typing." from Innumeracy "The most amazing coincidence of all would be the complete absence of all coincidence." from Irreligion and other books "The market evinces a kind of liar paradox: It is efficient if and only if enough people believe it isn't." from A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market
“There’s nothing more enlightening than a view of life’s nuances as seen through the lens of a mathematician. Especially when that mathematician is John Allen Paulos.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History "I love Paulos's writing. Within the ephemeral specifics of news, he finds the enduring logic of mathematics. Who's Counting? is a glimpse of a more numerate world – and oh how I wish we lived there!" – Ben Orlin Author of Math with Bad Drawings "To combat [innumeracy] John Allen Paulos has concocted the perfect vaccine: this book, which is in many ways better than an entire high school math education! Our society would be unimaginably different if the average person truly understood the ideas in this marvelous and important book. It is probably hopelessly optimistic to dream this way, but I hope that Innumeracy might help launch a revolution in math education that would do for innumeracy what Sabin and Salk did for polio." Douglas Hofstadter, author of Godel, Escher, and Bach "A Numerate Life is the engaging history of a mathematical mind. As always, Paulos displays his genius for making the abstract and abstruse entirely intuitive." Sylvia Nasar, Author of A Beautiful Mind

"John Allen Paulos is one of the greatest mathematical storytellers of all time, one of those rare individuals who can quite beautifully use the medium of story to communicate math and statistics.” Doron Zeilberger — Professor of mathematics, Rutgers University, and winner of the Leroy P. Steele Prize and the Euler Medal "A quirky and surprisingly poignant book about the struggle to make sense of one’s own life story. With the help of logic and statistical reasoning, Paulos shines a light on the paradoxes and delusions that so often bedevil our remembrance of things past." Steven Strogatz — Professor of mathematics, Cornell University, and author of The Joy of X "Paulos is the real McCoy, and his newest offering, "A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market," is a double-chocolate nougat of a book - a rich, densely packed delight. It is also rueful, funny and disarmingly personal." Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times "Around the relations between formal mathematics and informal narrative, Paulos has woven a rich tapestry of jokes, paradoxes, logic, probability, statistics, semantics, philosophy and other wonders. One never knows what delightful surprise is coming next. You will learn a lot from this entertaining yet far from superficial book." Martin Gardner, science author and former Scientific American columnist

Where Pythagoras Consorts with Pulitzer

“Mathematics is no more computation than literature is typing.” from Innumeracy

John Allen Paulos is an extensively kudized author, popular public speaker, and former monthly columnist for ABCNews.com, the Scientific American, and the Guardian. Professor of math at Temple University in Philadelphia, he earned his Ph.D. in the subject from the University of Wisconsin.

His recent book (September, 2022) is Who’s Counting – Uniting Numbers and Narrative with Stories from Popular Cultures, Puzzles, Politics, and More. Other writings of his include Innumeracy (NY Times bestseller for 18 weeks), A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (on the Random House Modern Library’s compilation of the 100 best nonfiction books of the century), Once Upon a Number (chosen as one of the best books of 1998), and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market (a brief tenant on the BusinessWeek bestsellers list). He’s also written scholarly papers on probability, logic, and the philosophy of science as well as scores of OpEds, book reviews, and articles in publications such as the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Nation, Discover, the American Scholar, and the London Review of Books and has an extensive web and media presence.

In 2003 he received the AAAS award for promoting public understanding of science and in 2013 the Mathematics Communication Award from the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics.

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