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“ This is a short little book— 176 pages total— built around the idea of Fermi Problems, the order-of-magnitude estimates that Enrico Fermi was famous for. The idea is that, with a little basic knowledge and some really simple math, you can come up with ballpark estimates of all sorts of things— the canonical Fermi problem example is “How many piano tuners are there in Chicago? ”

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Let’s say your goal is to reduce gasoline consumption.

And let’s say there are only two kinds of cars in the world. Half of them are Suburbans that get 10 miles to the gallon and half are Priuses that get 50.

If we assume that all the cars drive the same number of miles, which would be a better investment:

• Get new tires for all the Suburbans and increase their mileage a bit to 13 miles per gallon.
• Replace all the Priuses and rewire them to get 100 miles per gallon (doubling their average!)

”

“ 1. Study the question carefully.
2. Confidently start work.
3. Appraise the context.
4. Relax.
5. Expect to wait.
6. Don’t accept unnecessary limitations.
7. Yesterday’s problems may help.
8. Change the problem.
9. Ask questions.
10. Time brings all things. ”