Mathematics is a wonderful, elegant, and exceedingly useful language. It has its own vocabulary and syntax, its own verbs, nouns, and
modifiers, and its own dialects and patois. It is used brilliantly by
some, poorly by others. Some of us fear to pursue its more esoteric
uses, while a few of us wield it like a sword to attack and conquer
income tax forms or masses of data that resist the less courageous.
This book does not guarantee to turn you into a Leibniz, or put you on
stage as a Professor Algebra, but it will, we hope, bring you a new,
exciting, and even entertaining view of what can be done with that
wonderful invention-numbers.
We all think we know enough about arithmetic to get by, and we
certainly feel no guilt about resorting to the handy pocket calculator
that has become so much a part of our lives. But, just as photography
may blind us to the beauty of a Vermeer painting, or an electronic
keyboard may make us forget the magnificence of a Horowitz sonata,
too much reliance on technology can deny us the pleasures that you
will find in these pages.
I remember the delight I experienced as a child when I was
shown that I could multiply by 25 merely by adding two zeros to my
number and dividing by four. Casting out nines to check multiplication came next, and then when I found out about cross-multiplying I
was hooked and became, for a short while, a generally unbearable
math nut. Immunizations against such afflictions are not available.
You have to recover all by yourself. Beware!
This is a fun book. You wouldn't have it in your hands right now
if you didn't have some interest either in improving your math skills
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x MATHEMAGICS
or in satisfying a curiosity about this fascinating subject. As with all
such instruction books, you may only retain and use a certain percentage of the varied tricks and methods described here, but that
alone will make it worth the investment of your time.
I know both the authors rather well. Art Benjamin is not only one
of those whiz kids we used to groan over in school, but has even been
known to tread the boards at the Hollywood Magic Castle, performing
demonstrations of his skill, and on one occasion he traveled to Tokyo,
Japan, to pit his math skills against a lady savant on live television.
Michael Shermer, with his specialized knowledge of science, has an
excellent overview of practical applications of math as it is used in the
real world.
If this is your first exposure to this kind of good math stuff, I envy
you. You'll discover, as you come upon each delicious new way to
attack numbers, that you missed something in school. Mathematics,
particularly arithmetic, is a powerful and dependable tool for day-today use which enables us to handle our complicated lives with more
assurance and accuracy. Let Art and Michael show you how to round
a few of the corners and cut through some of the traffic. Remember
these words of Dr. Samuel Johnson, an eminently practical soul in all
respects: "Arithmetical inquires give entertainment in solitude by the
practice, and reputation in public by the effect."
Above all, enjoy the book. Let it entertain you, and have fun with
it. That, with the occasional good deed, a slice of pizza (no anchovies!), and a selection of good friends, is about all you can ask of life.
Well, almost all. Maybe a Ferrari . . .
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