I recently wrote about my disappointment with a very small part of Kaiser Fung's new book, "How Numbers Rule Your World." I want to point out again that I have really enjoyed the book. One of the things that makes it really interesting is the little asides of historical note that are just the kind of detail I love...
Case in point:
In the same chapter I spoke of in the last blog, Kaiser explains a little about the history of the lie detector.
William Marston, A Harvard-trained psychologist who was the first to relate truth telling and blood pressure variations, failed to popularize the concept in the early twentieth century, but he ultimately achieved immortality by creating the comic book heroine Wonder Woman, who not coincidentally wieled a Magic Lasso that "makes all who are encircled in it tell the truth".
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