The Smart Guide to Practical Math is a book designed to enable anyone who can use a calculator to answer a large number of questions that commonly arise in everyday life. Whether you are a housewife or an auto mechanic, a doctor or a lawyer, a student or a businessman, The Smart Guide to Practical Math has the answers to the questions you want answered in a form that enables you to easily answer them. In forty years of teaching mathematics, the author has found that the question students most want to see answered is "What formula do I plug these numbers into?" That's generally the question most people want to see answered, because formulas represent the easiest way to get the solutions to the problems that you need to solve. Whether you want to know how many pounds of hamburger you need to make enough meat- loaf for 12 people, or how much to invest annually to have enough to send your child to college, or if it's really a good idea to buy a fuel additive for your car, there's a formula that answers your questions. The Smart Guide to Practical Math enables you to "do the math" – without having to do the actual math, because The Smart Guide to Practical Math does the math for you. You simply find a problem which looks like the problem you want to solve, and plug your numbers into the convenient formula. Practical math – for practical problems – neatly packaged for you.