How does homebanking work? How are board games developed? How reliable can wind energy get? How
do we discover forged paintings? Do smart girls stay single? How dangerous can a bioterrorist
get? In all these questions (and many others) mathematics plays a crucial role in the search
for an answer. This book tells the story behind twenty of these questions. This is explicitly
not a mathematics book but a book about the crucial role that mathematics plays in devising
the creative solutions the world needs. The questions are divided into three categories:
mathematics in everyday life mathematics for the workplace and mathematics for tomorrow's
society. The themes illustrate not only the incredibly broad applicability of mathematics in
the world around us but also the great diversity of useful mathematical techniques.
