Walkways built in a Kansas City Hyatt collapsed when the length of the bolts were tweaked; the collapse caused 114 deaths. The longer I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this does actually make a great analogy for workplace teamwork. When you set up a new database, or a way to input data, it’s good practice to test it and make sure it’s all working.

Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt Parker now lives in the overly quaint British town of Godalming. A local reporter with a flair for the dramatic took the opportunity to fry some eggs by placing a pan in the hotspot. In 1940, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was nicknamed Galloping Gertie and it collapsed four months after being built. We discover the trials and tribulations of getting calendars right, explore some of the oddities of probability, enjoy a bit of impossible geometry and see how getting units right (or wrong) can make all the difference.The book-length answer to anyone who ever put their hand up in math class and asked, "When am I ever going to use this in the real world? He explained that if all of the segments in the ball were hexagons you couldn’t make it into a ball. My major criticism is that despite the clear over-arching theme of maths problems, the book still does not feel that cohesive. I don’t go for popular science of this type, anecdotal though informed, commentary on technical mistakes.

The problem was that the starting value of 52,000 was a rounded figure with only two significant figures and now, suddenly, it had five. A parked car was a bit melted and someone claimed it burned their lemon (that’s not cockney rhyming slang; it was an actual lemon).To get everything back into alignment in the first place, the year 46BCE had a possible-world-record 445 days. The book is fine if you are looking for a book that shows how mathematics in its many practical applications goes wrong.