PCJS ACM/IEEE-CS Too Many Numbers
PRINCETON ACM / IEEE-CS CHAPTERS
DECEMBER 2018 JOINT MEETING
Too Many Numbers
The media loves to report on millions, billions, and trillions, but frequently makes basic mistakes or presents such numbers in misleading ways. This talk will explore how to deal with intimidating and confusing numbers -- and how to recognize how numbers are often misused in journalism, advertising, and politics. The talk will include many examples from the speaker's latest book, "Millions, Billions, Zillions" (now available from Princeton University Press). The target audience of this book is "all of us" -- even diehard math-phobes will learn some ideas, shortcuts, and strategies to work with the numbers that are trying to fool us.
Books on sale: Labyrinth Books will be selling copies of Brian Kernighan's latest book ("Millions, Billions, Zillions") at the meeting (cash and credit cards accepted) -- and there will be an opportunity after the meeting to get the author's autograph!
Date: Thursday December 13, 2018, 8:00pm
(refreshments at 7:30pm)
Place: Princeton University Computer Science Building
Large Auditorium, Room CS 104
35 Olden Street, Princeton NJ
Information: Dennis Mancl (908) 285-1066
On-line meeting notice: http://PrincetonACM.acm.org/meetings/mtg1812.pdf
All ACM / IEEE-CS meetings are open to the public. Students and their parents are welcome. There is no admission charge.
A pre-meeting dinner is held at 6:00 p.m. at Ruby Tuesday's Restaurant on Route 1. Please send email to princetonacm@gmail.org in advance if you plan to attend the dinner.
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
Registration
- Date: 13 Dec 2018
- Time: 07:30 PM to 10:00 PM
- All times are (GMT-05:00) US/Eastern
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Add Event to Calendar
- Princeton University
- 35 Olden Street
- Princeton, New Jersey
- United States
- Building: Computer Science Building
- Room Number: Large Auditorium -- Room CS 104
- Contact Event Host
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Dennis Mancl (908) 285-1066
Speakers
Brian Kernighan
Biography:
Brian Kernighan received a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton in 1969. He was a member of the Computing Science Research center at Bell Labs until 2000, and is now a professor in the Computer Science Department at Princeton.
Brian is a co-creator of several programming languages, including AWK and AMPL, and of a number of tools for document preparation. He is the co-author of a dozen books and some technical papers, and holds 5 patents. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002. His research areas include programming languages, tools and interfaces that make computers easier to use, often for non-specialist users. He has also written two books on technology for non-technical audiences: "Understanding the Digital World" in 2017 and "Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself in a World of Too Many Numbers", which was published in November 2018.
Agenda
6:00PM Dinner (optional)
7:30PM Refreshments & Networking
8:00PM Meeting & Lecture
9:30PM Q&A with Speaker