How does homebanking work? How are board games developed? How reliable can wind energy get? How do we discover forged paintings? Do smart girls stay single? How dangerous can a bioterrorist get? In all these questions (and many others), mathematics plays a crucial role in the search for an answer.​

This book tells the story behind twenty of these questions. This is explicitly not a mathematics book, but a book about the crucial role that mathematics plays in devising the creative solutions the world needs. The questions are divided into three categories: mathematics in everyday life, mathematics for the workplace, and mathematics for tomorrow's society. The themes illustrate not only the incredibly broad applicability of mathematics in the world around us, but also the great diversity of useful mathematical techniques.