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Reviews of Four Ways of Thinking

Packed with practical examples and insightful wisdom, this book will sharpen your mind, empower your decision-making, and leave you equipped to navigate life's challenges with wit and acumen. A highly enjoyable and effective guide to better thinking. -- Sabine Hossenfelder

I wish David Sumpter had been my maths teacher. I hated the subject at school. I hoover up his books now. . . He unpicks four big 20th-century ideas, all related to mathematical modelling of real-world behaviour. His particular genius is to apply these ways of thinking to relatable situations -- James McConnachie ― The Sunday Times

Reviews of The Ten Equations

Sometimes books about numbers come along and we're so ecstatic that we just pop with delight. One such book is The Ten Equations that Rule The World -- Tim Harford, More or Less BBC4

These aren't the equations of Newton or Einstein -- crisp relations describing the evolution of a clockwork universe. These are the equations of randomness, expectation, and imperfect information. The equations, in other words, of the real world. David Sumpter provides an entertaining tour that will change how you see the world" -- Sean Carroll author of Something Deeply Hidden

Hugely entertaining, erudite and at times genuinely witty . . . it's nice to be spoken to in grown-up language by a genius. You will come away from Sumpter's book with a much clearer idea of why the world is less messy than it appears, E&T Magazine

Reviews of Outnumbered

Sumpter's [...] expertise and sceptical approach are brought alive with fascinating examples including Banksy and Space Invaders., Financial Times

[David Sumpter] reckons with the sheer scales of the systems that manage much of our digital lives. Step by step he details the maths that underpins each of these systems, laying out the straightforward, if advanced, calculations that govern their outcomes - and their limitations., Guardian

An important message., Popular Science

As millions slowly wake up to the pitfalls of handing over their digital lives, Sumpter combines engaging hands-on demonstrations with stories from insiders to shed light on precisely how data alchemists seek to persuade and predict us, and whether their almighty algorithms are all they're hyped up to be. -- John Burn-Murdoch, data journalist, Financial Times

You've heard about these algorithms that run your life and you want to know two things: how exactly do they work? And how much should I worry? With a refreshing mix of in-depth knowledge and personal honesty, David Sumpter answers both those questions., Timandra Harkness, writer, comedian and broadcaster, and author of Big Data

A stellar book about the application of mathematics to the real world. Each chapter tells a fascinating story, and David's warm and witty style demonstrates that a mathematician can be so much more than just a machine for turning coffee into theorems. A riveting read. -- Kit Yates, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath

Reviews of Soccermatics

A fascinating study of the structures and patterns that underpin football matches, with revealing and surprising conclusions. (Michael Cox, editor of Zonal Marking and Guardian Sports)

Sumpter's deconstruction of formations proved why maths and football can't live without each other. It's every football nerd's dream. (FourFourTwo)
 

A fascinating and entertaining dive into the mathematics of the beautiful game. (The Guardian)

Football looked at in a very different way (Pat Nevin, former Chelsea and Everton star and football media analyst)

...Highly readable... (The Irish Times)

...You will love this book. (The Tribune)

Soccermatics provides fresh insight into a game we've been watching all of our lives. But it's more than a book about football and is all the better for it. (Adam Bate, football features writer for Sky Sports)

David Sumpter brings together his two passions, mathematics and football, in a highly original and entertaining way. The beautiful game illustrated through the beauty of mathematics. (Philip Maini FRS, Professor of Mathematical Biology, University of Oxford)

Reviews of Collective Animal Behavior

I enjoyed reading Collective Animal Behavior, sharing it with students working on undergraduate summer research, and finding a few nicely covered topics relevant to my own research. . . . Collective Animal Behavior stands out for several reasons. At a technical level, it provides wide coverage of both mechanistic modeling, which is used to connect individual rules with group behavior, and functional analysis, which explains why some behaviors might confer advantages over others. Stylistically, Sumpter synthesizes perspectives, comparisons, critiques, and examples of human and animal behavior into his book. He expresses his opinions directly and presents provocative case studies. Leah Edelstein-Keshet, Physics Today

Collective Animal Behavior is a fascinating and inspiring book. . . . I very much enjoyed reading this book and would certainly recommend it to anyone willing to approach the fascinating subject of collective animal behaviour. A . . . remarkable feature of this work is the way the author pools ideas, concepts and models from theoretical biology, physics, game theory and microeconomics. Irene Giardina, ScienceDirect

This is a comprehensive, insightful, and fascinating introduction to how, and why, animals behave as a collective. From swarming ants and locusts, to flocking birds and human crowds, this modern synthesis is a must-read for biologists, mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists who seek to understand the underlying mechanisms and evolutionary principles of animal grouping. Both scholarly and accessible, this book provides us a tantalizing overview of one of the most exciting new fields in biology--collective animal behavior.  Iain D. Couzin, Princeton University

This well-organized, engaging, and authoritative book demonstrates that significant strides have been made in the mathematical models examining the collective behaviors of animals. No other book draws the disparate literature in this field together. This in itself would be an achievement, but Sumpter offers more: insightful comparisons between models, noteworthy bridges between mechanistic and functional schools of model building, and illuminating discussions of models' successes and limitations." Graeme Ruxton, University of Glasgow

"This book fills an important niche that will be of interest to scientists across disciplines. Clear and well-illustrated, this is an excellent learning and teaching resource." Darren P. Croft, University of Exeter