From the financial crisis to ecological disasters, we routinely fail to foresee hugely significant events, often at great cost to society. The rise of ‘big data’ has the potential to help us predict the future, yet much of it is misleading and useless. Nate Silver accurately predicted the results of every state in the 2012 US election, cementing his reputation as one of our most prophetic forecasters. Here he takes us on an enthralling insider’s tour of the high-stakes world of prediction, showing how we can all learn to detect the true signals amid the noise of data. The International Bestseller An Economist and The Times Book of the Year ‘The Galileo of number crunchers.’ Independent ‘A 34-year old Delphic Oracle.’ Daily Beast ‘Fascinating …’ Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times ‘Outstanding … fun to read … I was hooked’ Tim Harford, Financial Times ‘Is there anything Nat Silver could tell us that we wouldn’t believe?’ Jonathan Freedland ‘The inhabitants of Westminster are speed-reading The Signal and the Noise … Remarkable and rewarding.’ Matthew D'Ancona, Sunday Telegraph ‘An outlier if we’ve ever soon one’ New York Observer A new kind of political superstar' Observer