Difference between revisions of "The Story of Mathematics"
| Line 35: | Line 35: | ||
===Bad=== | ===Bad=== | ||
* The magazine layout, with many sidebars on each page, makes it difficult to stay focused on the main thread. | * The magazine layout, with many sidebars on each page, makes it difficult to stay focused on the main thread. | ||
| − | * | + | * once you start getting into more complicated concepts, the author makes no attempt to explain them and only very briefly mentions important mathematical concepts like ''e'' and the quadratic formula. Often times she doesn't really even describe what they're used for. This is forgivable since it's more a history book than a math primer. |
* The book is very UK-centric. | * The book is very UK-centric. | ||
| − | * | + | * Despite being a history book, there are no citations at all. So, when you see claims made like a 6x6 magic square being related to the [[mark of the beast]], which I've never heard of, it's quite difficult to verify. |
===Ugly=== | ===Ugly=== | ||
Revision as of 12:11, 26 April 2023
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Paperback - USA - 1st edition. |
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The Story of Mathematics is a book about the history of mathematics written by Anne Rooney and published in January 2008. It is the first book in Rooney's The Story Of series.
Personal
| Own? | Paperback - USA - 1st edition. |
|---|---|
| Read? | Paperback - USA - 1st edition. |
| Finished | 201?. |
I probably bought my copy in the discount section of a book store around 2012, and I probably read it shortly thereafter. I remember liking it the first time through, then, wanting to create a page for it in this Wiki, I reread.
Review
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Overall: |
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Good
- Despite being about mathematics, the book is very easy to follow. It's fully illustrated and written for the average reader.
- The first chapter is a great introduction into teaching how numbers are a something humans had to invent rather than concepts that just exist on their own. It starts with pre-numeric systems like tick marks, then moves onto various early counting systems like Roman Numerals and the Chinese multiplicative system, then discusses the various and base-5, 12 and 60 systems used by ancient cultures before finally getting to the Hindu-Arabic system we use today. It also describes early versions of zero before it became a true placeholder, negative numbers, and fractions.
- I like how it discusses how early cultures don't have words for big numbers, and, when they do, they're cumbersome.
Bad
- The magazine layout, with many sidebars on each page, makes it difficult to stay focused on the main thread.
- once you start getting into more complicated concepts, the author makes no attempt to explain them and only very briefly mentions important mathematical concepts like e and the quadratic formula. Often times she doesn't really even describe what they're used for. This is forgivable since it's more a history book than a math primer.
- The book is very UK-centric.
- Despite being a history book, there are no citations at all. So, when you see claims made like a 6x6 magic square being related to the mark of the beast, which I've never heard of, it's quite difficult to verify.
Ugly
- Nothing.
Links
