Arithmetic
Published on 1. July 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-0-674-23751-3 (ISBN)
Description
"Inspiring and informative...deserves to be widely read."
-Wall Street Journal
"This fun book offers a philosophical take on number systems and revels in the beauty of math."
-Science News
Because we have ten fingers, grouping by ten seems natural, but twelve would be better for divisibility, and eight is well suited to repeated halving. Grouping by two, as in binary code, has turned out to have its own remarkable advantages.
Paul Lockhart presents arithmetic not as rote manipulation of numbers-a practical if mundane branch of knowledge best suited for filling out tax forms-but as a fascinating, sometimes surprising intellectual craft that arises from our desire to add, divide, and multiply important things. Passionate and entertaining, Arithmetic invites us to experience the beauty of mathematics through the eyes of a beguiling teacher.
"A nuanced understanding of working with numbers, gently connecting procedures that we once learned by rote with intuitions long since muddled by education...Lockhart presents arithmetic as a pleasurable pastime, and describes it as a craft like knitting."
-Jonathon Keats, New Scientist
"What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind's most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story...A wonderful book."
-Keith Devlin, author of Finding Fibonacci
-Wall Street Journal
"This fun book offers a philosophical take on number systems and revels in the beauty of math."
-Science News
Because we have ten fingers, grouping by ten seems natural, but twelve would be better for divisibility, and eight is well suited to repeated halving. Grouping by two, as in binary code, has turned out to have its own remarkable advantages.
Paul Lockhart presents arithmetic not as rote manipulation of numbers-a practical if mundane branch of knowledge best suited for filling out tax forms-but as a fascinating, sometimes surprising intellectual craft that arises from our desire to add, divide, and multiply important things. Passionate and entertaining, Arithmetic invites us to experience the beauty of mathematics through the eyes of a beguiling teacher.
"A nuanced understanding of working with numbers, gently connecting procedures that we once learned by rote with intuitions long since muddled by education...Lockhart presents arithmetic as a pleasurable pastime, and describes it as a craft like knitting."
-Jonathon Keats, New Scientist
"What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind's most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story...A wonderful book."
-Keith Devlin, author of Finding Fibonacci
Reviews / Votes
Today's world is more dependent on numbers than at any time in human history, yet with the ready availability of cheap, reliable devices that handle computation, we have never had less need to master arithmetic. Our newfound freedom from the chore of hand computation makes it both possible and, Paul Lockhart argues in this wonderful new book, desirable to step back and reflect on the entire development of arithmetic over several millennia. What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind's most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story. -- Keith Devlin, mathematician, author of <i>The Man of Numbers</i> and <i>Finding Fibonacci</i> What an exuberant, exciting invitation to take joy in the wonderful human activity of counting, and to think deeply about its many origins. Marvelously personal, quite surprising at times, and fun to read. -- Barry Mazur, Gerhard Gade University Professor at Harvard University, coauthor of <i>Prime Numbers and the Riemann Hypothesis</i> Once I started reading, the text proved mind-blowing. Some of the most ingrained and fundamental assumptions about the way we count and understand numbers are here deconstructed and shown to be arbitrary... For the mathematical layman, this book will be a very pleasant surprise... I am delighted to say that Lockhart is a fabulously entertaining writer, and that his light-hearted approach managed to keep me cheerfully engaged even when his discussions were most abstract... It's in equal measures entertaining and educational, and a pleasant surprise on more levels than one. -- Andrea Tallarita * PopMatters * Arithmetic is inspiring and informative, and deserves to be widely read. -- Jane Gleeson-White * Wall Street Journal * Beginning with counting and moving through topics such as multiplication and fractions, Arithmetic provides a nuanced understanding of working with numbers, gently connecting procedures that we once learned by rote with intuitions long since muddled by education...Lockhart presents arithmetic as a pleasurable pastime, and describes it as a craft like knitting. Manipulating calculi on a tabula, you can see what he means. -- Jonathon Keats * New Scientist * More than just an informative survey of the fundamentals of basic arithmetic, this fun book offers a philosophical take on number systems and revels in the beauty of math. * Science News *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass.
United States
Publishing group
Harvard University Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
58 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 138 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
289 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-23751-3 (9780674237513)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Previous edition
Person
Paul Lockhart is the author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician's Lament. After a career as a research mathematician at Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he spent two decades teaching algebra at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn.