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.
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 The Man of Numbers
and Finding Fibonacci*
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 Prime Numbers and the Riemann
Hypothesis*
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.
*PopMatters*
Arithmetic is inspiring and informative, and deserves to be widely
read.
*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.
*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*
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