Every now and then I actually feel that I have made a positive contribution to the world.
Math warning : Orange
I loaned “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers” to Bitterkat, the biography of Paul Erdos, a quirky man who lived for math. He had few personal possessions, no career to speak of, never married. He would wander around; show up at a mathematician’s home or office, usually unannounced, and say, “My mind is open.” And the mathematician would stop what they were doing in order to work with Erdos.
I think the book is great. Erdos is a very entertaining character. The author does a good job of explain advanced math concepts, and even showing a practical use for some of them.
Bitterkat tells me that she and her kids even worked on some of the problems, such as the
Four Colors Theorem.
What a great way for kids to spend time in the summer, doing topology with their mom.
I give the book an “A” and encourage everyone to read it.
Posted by joncim at July 13, 2005 08:11 PM...oh yeah, "Erdos" (there's an umlaut over the 'o') rhymes with Kurdish...
Posted by: :-jon at July 14, 2005 10:02 AMBoring ;-)
But I did finish "Replay". Man that was disappointing. We should chat about it sometime.
Posted by: Michelle at July 14, 2005 11:28 AMThe other fun thing I learned (and showed the kids) is how to quickly add an array of numbers. Say, what's the sum of the numbers 1 through 50. The magic trick is to make 2 rows. 1-50 for the first row and 50-1 for the second row. You'll find that the sum of each column is 51. 51x50=2550. 2550/2=1275. Cool. Can't remember which mathemetician figured that but he did it in like 7th grade and was a total show off about it.
Posted by: bitterkat at July 14, 2005 08:23 PM