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How Long is a Piece of String?

Rob Eastaway

Rob Eastaway (www.robeastaway.com) is a consultant, writer and speaker. He specialises in Popular Maths, Cricket, and Creative Problem-Solving. Rob is the Director of Maths Inspiration, a national programme of theatre-based lecture shows for 15-17 year olds that has reached over 200,000 teenagers since it began in 2004.  He also regularly gives talks to all age groups in primary and secondary schools.

Rob also does a lot of national and local radio, usually to talk about maths in everyday life, or about ways to make maths more engaging for adults and children.  He has appeared numerous times on Radio 4’s Today Programme, You and Yours, Open Book and Broadcasting House.  He is probably best known for appearances on More or Less, presented by Tim Harford.

Rob works closely with National Numeracy, the national charity that campaigns for better adult numeracy and in 2017 he received the Zeeman medal for excellence in communication of maths to the general public.

He has been writing books for over twenty years and his titles include cricket book What is a Googly? The Mysteries of Cricket Explained (new edition published June 2019), popular maths titles Why do Buses Come in Threes? The Hidden Mathematics of Everyday Life, How Long is a Piece of String? More Hidden Maths of Everyday Life, Mindbenders: Where Maths Meets Creativity (new edition published in 2018 as Maddening Mindbending Puzzles),  The Hidden Maths of Sport and How Many Socks Make a Pair? and Maths On The Back Of An Envelope.

Memory titles include children’s book How to Remember (almost) Everything Ever and Improve Your Memory Today, published by Pavilion Books.   After the success of Maths for Mums and Dads and the sequel More Maths for Mums and Dads: The Teenage Years, Random House published  Maths on the Go: 101 Fun Ways to Play with Maths, co-authored with Mike Askew.

Watkins published Any Ideas: Tips and Techniques to Help You Think Creatively. Rob’s latest book, Maths On The Back Of An Envelope: Clever Ways to (roughly) Calculate Anything will be published by Atlantic Books in collaboration with New Scientist in October 2023.

“Great talk, just bought the book can’t wait to learn and refine my understanding of math with these techniques.”

“This made things a lot easier. Very good explanation. I just bought 2 books because i want to know more about this! 1 for myself of course and 1 to give away!. Thank you very much!”

“Ordered the book on the back of this!”

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