When: Thursday, January 21, 2010
Where: Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway, New York, NY
What time: 7-8 p.m.
Event Information: Check the Strand's events for more info.

PEN member Charles Seife will discuss Proofiness, which is defined as the art of using nonsensical mathematical arguments - Cheerios increases your risk of being hit by a bus?! - to convince us of the veracity of things we know in our hearts to be false. In his new book, Seife argues that bad math is undermining our democracy (not to mention our notion of common sense).

Charles Seife is the author of Sun in the Bottle and Zero, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first non-fiction book. He is a PEN member and an associate professor of journalism at New York University.