Charles Seife

American author, journalist and professor

Charles Seife is an American author, journalist, and professor at New York University. He has written extensively on scientific and mathematical topics.

Career

Seife holds a mathematics degree from Princeton University (1993),[1] an M.S. in mathematics from Yale University and a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University.[2]

Seife wrote for Science magazine and New Scientist before joining the Department of Journalism at New York University where he became a professor.[2]

Books

His first and best-known published book is Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (Viking, 2000).[3]

Another well-known book from Seife is Proofiness: How You're Being Fooled By the Numbers (Penguin, 2010).[4] Here, Seife focuses on how much propaganda uses numbers worded in such a way that they confuse people and can be misinterpreted.[5]

Other books by Seife are:

  • Alpha & Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe, Penguin Putnam, 2003. ISBN 0-670-03179-8
  • Decoding the Universe, Penguin, 2007. ISBN 978-0-14-303839-9
  • Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking, Viking, 2008. ISBN 978-0-670-02033-1[6]
  • Virtual Unreality: Just Because the Internet Told You, How Do You Know It's True?, Penguin Putnam, 2014. ISBN 0-670-02608-5[7]
  • Hawking Hawking: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity, Basic Books, 2021. ISBN 9781541618374[8]

Other writing

Seife's freelance work has appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Scientific American, and The Economist, among others.[2] Throughout his career, he has written many book reviews, especially of books which focus on mathematics.

Professional associations

Seife is a member of PEN, the National Association of Science Writers, and the D.C. Science Writers Association.[citation needed]

Awards

  • 2001 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction for Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

References

  1. ^ Greenwood, Katherine Federici (13 October 2010). Numbers can mislead - Charles Seife ’93 reveals mischief behind data, Princeton Alumni Weekly
  2. ^ a b c Journalism at NYU - Faculty Archived April 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Seife, Charles (2000). Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780140296471.
  4. ^ Seife, Charles (2010). Proofiness: How You're Being Fooled by the Numbers. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-312007-0.
  5. ^ Steven Strogatz, Fibbing With Numbers, The New York Times, 17 September 2010
  6. ^ Seife, Charles (2008). Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking. Penguin. ISBN 9780670020331.
  7. ^ Seife, Charles (2015-08-04). Virtual Unreality: The New Era of Digital Deception. Penguin. ISBN 9780143127673; pbk{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  8. ^ Seife, Charles (2021). Hawking Hawking: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-5416-1837-4.

External links

  • Article on edge.org Archived 2017-07-06 at the Wayback Machine
  • DC Science Writers Association website
  • Homepage
  • Leonard Lopate interview with Charles Seife
  • Appearances on C-SPAN
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Works by Charles Seife
  • Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea (2000)
  • Alpha & Omega (2003)
  • Decoding the Universe (2007)
  • Sun in a Bottle (2008)
  • Proofiness (2010)
  • Virtual Unreality (2015)
  • Hawking Hawking (2021)
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