  | Book Details Title: What’s the Point of Math? |
Book DescriptionAbout the Author DK was founded in London in 1974 and is now the world leading illustrated reference publisher and a member of the Penguin Random House division of Bertelsmann. DK publishes highly visual, photographic non-fiction for adults and children. DK produces content for consumers in over 100 countries and over 60 languages, with offices in the UK, India, US, Germany, China, Canada, Spain and Australia. DK’s aim is to inspire, educate and entertain readers of all ages, and everything DK publishes, whether print or digital, embodies the unique DK design approach. DK brings unrivaled clarity to a wide range of topics, with a unique combination of words and pictures, put together to spectacular effect. We have a reputation for innovation in design for both print and digital products. Our adult range spans travel, including the award-winning DK Eyewitness Travel Guides, history, science, nature, sport, gardening, cookery and parenting. DK’s extensive children’s list showcases a fantastic store of information for children, toddlers and babies. DK covers everything from animals and the human body, to homework help and craft activities, together with an impressive list of licensing titles, including the best-selling LEGO® books. DK acts as the parent company for Alpha Books, publisher of the Idiot’s Guides series. https://www.dk.com/ Read more Customers Review: The earliest records of humans using math are described and illustrated in this book in ways that make me say “if only!” — if only I’d had this, years ago! Math was my worst subject in first grade and I never did get a handle on it, but if I’d had access to a book like this 50 years ago, I might be able to balance algebraic equations today. (Might.) Yes, by sixth grade, I’d seen Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land, but by then, the damage had been done. Some kids got As in math with the same lame teachers I had, while I needed some other kind of teaching method.This book is lively and colorful, a bit too busy for me, but probably not for ages 9-12. It’s not a textbook, so they can skip the pages with equations and nobody will spank them. (I hope. In first grade, I lost count of the number of times Mrs. Hoffman spanked me for coming to her desk saying I don’t get it. Everyone else got it! What was my problem? She’d turn me over on her knee and spank-spank-spank in front of the entire class. Parents thought nothing of it in those days.) I hope nobody punishes children who “don’t get it,” and I hope alternative books like this one help flip the light bulb “on” for kids who need an extra spark to shine on the subject.My favorite part of this book is the history. Seeing how many characters it took for ancient Egyptians to count and record numbers, you can appreciate the beauty of our present systems with digits zero to nine and all their combinations. I didn’t realize that until this system evolved, it wasn’t even possible to do complex mathematical equations.Then came the algebra chapter. I really thought this was going to do it for me: finally, I’d GET IT, I’d be able to Do the Math – but, um, let me keep at this awhile longer. {{blush}}UPDATEI showed this (n-1) formula to a math teacher. She said it’s not my fault I struggled:> You can’t understand the material because it is poorly presented. This is not grade school level either, probably first time any student sees this is 7th grade and they don’t really understand it most of them until at least ninth grade…. WAY too advanced for age 9-12.> This is a common formula taught in the seventh grade. Pretty much useless in real life. The example at the bottom is very confusing (the typeface is super weird) and even I had trouble understanding they were trying to calculate the 21st term because the last time they said so was at the very top of the page. That they used the word “number” instead of the correct word “term” really bugs the h^ll out of me. Math is an international language, and it’s very precise. These guys are sloppy. Readers of this book would spend hours trying to figure out what the h^ll the authors were even talking about in the first place. That’s my review of this one page.> I see they did throw the correct word “term” in there once and only once. Talk about sloppy.And on a related note, she wrote, “We’ve gotten grossly carried away with the level of material our kids are expected to memorize. They can’t tell assumptions from facts anymore. We are sunk.”I sank 50 years ago, in first grade, but I’ve been dog-paddling and treading water ever since. Never too late to teach an old dog new tricks? One word: PHYSICS. Another word: TRIGONOMETRY.Off to go walk my dogs and rejoice that hieroglyphics have been replaced with digits!
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12 reviews