THE STORY OF MATH INTRODUCTION This is a story book about math. In fact, it’s the very story of math itself. You might be thinking—math isn’t the sort of thing you find in stories. Math is just numbers, shapes, and really weird equations packed with Xs and Ys. How can you possibly tell a story about that? Surely, math belongs in exercise books, not novels. Well actually, just like the car, chocolate bars, or the light bulb, math is a human invention. OK, some people call it a “discovery” instead, but the point is that the way we use numbers in our everyday lives is shaped by our very human point of view. For example, the fact that our numbers go up in tens is down to most people having ten fingers! And how we talk about numbers has changed over time. Did you know, for instance, that there was no number zero 1,500 years ago? Or that only 600 years ago in Europe people were still using ROMAN NUMERALS (III, VI, IX) rather than the numbers you know today (3, 6, 9)? This book takes you on a wild ride through the very human history of math and how it is central to our lives today. You might not realize it, but you rely on math 24/7—from divvying up a piping-hot pizza to telling the time to swiping and liking on your smartphone. Fingers and Toes Early peoples often counted using what was close to HAND. And let’s face it, nothing is closer to hand than, er, your hands. Home Number Peoples in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) were among the first to settle down, call one place home, and farm to survive. Suddenly, there was much, much more that needed counting—from days left in the growing season to herd numbers and the amount of crops grown. Those Geometric Greeks Almost 3,000 years ago, Ancient Greece emerged as the brightest civilization around the Mediterranean. Its many small city-states like Sparta and Athens often bickered and battled, but in between got some serious math done. Eratosthenes VS. The Earth Eratosthenes was well-traveled for his time. Born in Libya, he’d studied in Greece and worked in Egypt. This was only a tiny fraction of the planet, yet without trekking around it or flying high above it, our plucky librarian measured the entire Earth and got it 99% right. Pascal' s Patterns Born in France in 1623, Blaise Pascal was one of those annoyingly smart child geniuses you sometimes hear about—you know, the type that gives regular kids a bad name. Funky Theories As math has advanced, spurred on at times by computers, it’s sprouted more new ideas and theories, some of which are pretty far out.
✔ Author(s): Clive Gifford,Michael Young
✔ Title: A Quick History of Math: From Counting Cavemen to Computers (Quick Histories)
✔ Rating : 4.7 out of 5 base on (29 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 0711249032
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
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