Authors@Google: Charles Seife January 23, 2012

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Charles Seife visits Google's New York, NY office to discuss his book "Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception." This event took place on December 1, 2011, as part of the Authors@Google series.

"Proofiness," as Charles Seife explains in this eye-opening book, is the art of using pure mathematics for impure ends, and he reminds readers that bad mathematics has a dark side. It is used to bring down beloved government officials and to appoint undeserving ones (both Democratic and Republican), to convict the innocent and acquit the guilty, to ruin our economy, and to fix the outcomes of future elections. This penetrating look at the intersection of math and society will appeal to readers of Freakonomics and the books of Malcolm Gladwell.

Charles Seife, a journalist with Science magazine, has also written for New Scientist, Scientific American, The Economist, Wired UK, and The Sciences, among many other publications. His previous titles include Alpha & Omega and Zero. He received an MS in Probability Theory and Artificial Intelligence from Yale.