Popular Science Review - How to Make a Camel Smoothie

Home Authors Books Subjects Events Software Features Links Newsletter Gifts Blog Write Review What's New

Review - Number Freaking [How to Make a Camel Smoothie] - Gary Rimmer

... the surreal sums behind everday life, the title continues. This is a book of mind-boggling numbers, of numerical factoids to amaze and delight (and, okay, sometimes bore) you.

The format is simple - Gary Rimmer meanders around various topics, doing the sums to turn a basic statistic into a shocking reality. After a while the presentation - he tells you the sum, then offers three possible answers (the correct one is identified in a little box at the bottom of the page), does rather grate. When the subject is fascinating, you don't really notice - when it's tedious, or occasionally he's ladling on the dramatic irony (by comparing, for instance, the wealth of the worlds richest people with the debt of third world countries) it can be either irritating or trite.

A randomly picked example of how this works - he points out that on average you will drink 30,280 litres of water in a lifetime. A bath holds 500 litres. So, he asks, will you drink 375.44, 60.56 or 27.54 bathfulls? This is one of the more inane statistics; some, though, are riveting. He starts the whole book, for instance, with details of Elvis's calorie consumption towards the end of his life - you just would not believe what that works out in the equivalent of Big Macs per day.

In the introduction Rimmer says "this isn't a book of statistics" - that's true in a sense, but he is making use of statistics, and sometimes his limited grasp of the mathematics leads to a totally meaningless comparison. For example, he says that given the average distance walked per day by an American is 1 kilometre, and the average waking day is 16.9 hours, then the average speed (under their own steam) of an American is 59 metres per hour. He compares this to a snail at 49 metres per hour or a sloth at 109 metres per hour. But this is a totally meaningless comparison, putting the human's speed averaged over a day, against the animal's average speed when moving - the true comparison is more like 5,000 metres per hour for a human being, and is totally unrelated to the distance travelled.

It's not a bad book by any means - often entertaining and occasionally astounding - but it could have been better. Perhaps it's summed up by the sticker on the front cover of our review copy of the original title (How to Make a Camel Smoothie) which reads "Hooked on sudoku? You'll love Camel Smoothie." This may be true - but isn't so inspiring for those of us who find sudoku a tedious waste of space...

Only in paperback - this book was formerly known as "How to Make a Camel Smoothie" - if you prefer that title, here's a link!

Reviewed by Brian Clegg

DISCLAIMERS

This site has no connection with Popular Science magazine or other sites and publications with a similar name.

Much of the content of this site is written by popular science writers or friends of popular science writers. Inevitably many of the reviews in such a small community are written by or about someone we know. We always aim to be impartial in our reviews, but there is a connection which we need make clear, as there is no intention to deceive. The content of any review or article is solely the opinion of the author and should not be read or understood on any other basis. The site exists to promote popular science writing and popular science authors and for this reason should be considered promotional material, just as the editorial reviews in an online bookshop or the blurb on the back of a book should be considered promotional.

The website should not be eaten or used where it can come into contact with water.

Disagree with our review? Want to comment on a feature? Contact us at info@ popularscience.co.uk - have your say!

Part of the site