Handbook of Organisation Studies
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#1997 Operational Research Society Ltd. All rights reserved. 0160-5682/97 $12.00
Book Selection Edited by JM Wilson B Connolly and S Vajda: A Mathematical Kaleidoscope: Applications in Industry, Business and Science PH Millard and IS McLean (Eds): Go With the Flow: A Systems Approach to Healthcare Planning RS Clegg, C Hardy and RW Nord (Eds): Handbook of Organisation Studies T Tarlaky (Ed.): Interior Point Methods of Mathematical Programming G Keller and B Warwick: Statistics for Management and Economics (4th Edn) CV Jones: Visualization and Optimization
A Mathematical Kaleidoscope: Applications in Industry, Business and Science B Connolly and S Vajda Albion Publishing, Chichester, 1996. 266 pp, £14.95. ISBN 1 898563 21 7
This is a book for those who are both curious and mathematically sophisticated. I was excited by the title, always having had a fascination with the beauty and elegance of mathematics. But I was not prepared for the intensity of mathematical thought required to get through the text. This is not a book to lend friends to show them that mathematics can be interesting, because they would fall at the ®rst formula! In fairness the intended audience is `advanced undergraduates' (do these still exist?) and postgraduates. The topics covered are varied and fascinating, from analysis of your chances of winning the football pools (depressingly small at one in 59 000) to likely times taken by committees to reach decisions (depressingly large in too many cases!). The ®rst thing that hit me about the style of the book is that it is packed full of equations. Whilst this might get pure mathematicians salivating at the thought, as a simple statistician or OR man I felt a little daunted at 70 formulae in the ®rst 20 pages! The narrative style, however, is good. The authors chat about interesting discussions they have had with various people and how the Bessel function naturally dropped out of a chat over hamburgers. I liked this approach and it gave me courage to wade through some of the more opaque mathematics. My only concern here was a slight condescension in places. For instance a secretarial friend comments `Perhaps you (the author) would like to make my otherwise depressing day more interesting by revealing your secret. Or
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would it be too complex for my admittedly microscopic brain?' I suspect in reality much of this is tongue in cheek. I would have liked to see the text more clearly signposted, and ideally some of the formulae stuck in appendices. More diagrams would have helped, and perhaps `So What?' summaries at the end of chapters, showing how what has been discussed, could be used. But if there are any REAL mathematicians in the OR Society, they will ®nd this book broad in interest and full of examples of mathematical analysis being applied to life situations. The rest of us will have to rely on Ian Stewart to make them easier to understand! J Lowther
Go With the Flow: A Systems Approach to Healthcare Planning PH Millard and IS McLean (Eds) Royal Society of Medicine Press, L
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