Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A survey of the fundamental concepts of mathematics and the many ways maths is used in everyday life, this book reintroduces the mathematics learned in school. It highlights topics relevant to everyday concerns, such as how statistics can be misleading and how interest on savings accounts accrues at different interest rates. The book discusses other examples such as how extremely large numbers are used to write unbreakable computer codes and how the slope of a curve is used by biologists to calculate the rate of growth of species. It also explores problem areas such as why two negative numbers multiplied together make a positive number and why fractions can be easily multiplied but not easily added. The book only covers school level maths and provides step-by-step solutions to each problem.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Partial table of contents
• About Mathematics
• The Many Faces of Mathematics
• The Spell of Cool Numbers
• Don't Do a Number on Me
• It Ain't Necessarily So
• The Mother of Invention
• Some Proposals, Modest and Immodest
• From High School To Kindergarten
• You Will Never See a Large Number
• Five Things You Can Do with Two Numbers
• Out of Thin Air
• The Three Sides of a Right Triangle
• Turning an Eguation into a Picture
• Why Negative Times Negative Is Positive
• Closer And Closer
• Zero over Zero
• Trying to Find a Curved Area
• Finding a Curved Area
• One Thought in Parting
• Further Reading
• Glossary of Symbols
• References
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This engaging book's purpose is "to spread the gospel of mathematics ... and to bring back those who were turned off by an unpleasant experience in school...." Stein's style is breezy but concise. The diverse themes hold the reader's interest throughout; many of the topics would greatly help a high school teacher who wants to enrich the often dreary textbook material. Difficulty of the topics increases from the popular to the challenging. Part 1 deals with the lore of numbers, e.g., the number 13; the abuse of numbers, e.g., IQ; and the merits of numbers when properly used. Stein continues with practical themes such as the level of use of mathematics in more than 70 occupations, and recent mathematics teaching reforms and their fate. Part 2 covers various high school subjects from fractions to the Pythagorean Theorem with rare verve and originality. He ends the section with a nearly rigorous rendition of Cantor's diagonal method. Part 3 offers heuristic introductions to infinitary processes: slope, area, and volume. The last chapter challenges with a proof of Leibniz's infinite series for pi/4. A rich and charming book. General; lower-division undergraduates; practitioners. J. Mayer Lebanon Valley College

Author notes provided by Syndetics

SHERMAN K. STEIN is Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis, where he received a distinguished teaching award. He is also a recipient of the Lester R. Ford Prize of the Mathematical Association of America for excellence in exposition on math. He is the author of Mathematics: The Man-Made Universe, as well as The Guided Inquiry, a series of books on math for high school students. He lives in Davis, California.