WORT 89.9FM Madison · Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort our Thinking

Think about adding 1/4 of a cup to ⅓ of a cup of flour or deciding which wrench is larger, ⅜” or ½” or trying to understand what the 1-in-1000 odds of winning a raffle really means. If contemplating those ideas immediately sends you back to panicked middle school math class, you are not alone. Our next guest suggests that the human brain is simply not set up to intuitively understand fractions. When he’s not studying red blood cell alloimmunity in blood transfusions and organ transplants at his lab at the University of Virginia, pathologist James C. Zimring writes science primers for a general audience. In 2019, Zimring wrote “What Science is and How it Works.” Now he’s back with a new book, “Partial Truths: How Fractions Distort our Thinking.”

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