If one surveyed a group of adults and asked them how prevalent a role mathematics plays in their everyday life, most would likely shrug and claim, “Not much.” Many people see math as a required subject in school and that most of it won’t be important or helpful outside of a classroom. To many people math is perceived to be abstract lists of equations and formulas and they can’t see how any of it could be related to their lives. Szpiro’s The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How If one surveyed a group of adults and asked them how prevalent a role mathematics plays in their everyday life, most would likely shrug and claim, “Not much.” Many people see math as a required subject in school and that most of it won’t be important or helpful outside of a classroom. To many people math is perceived to be abstract lists of equations and formulas and they can’t see how any of it could be related to their lives. Szpiro’s The Secret Life of Numbers: 50 Easy Pieces on How Mathematicians Work and Think is a delightful collection of 50 fun and engaging short stories (2-5 pages each) that offers a peek into the world of mathematics, providing a entertaining and witty assortment of anecdotes, vignettes, and stories that enlighten to just how interesting and relevant the world of math has been in the past and can be for the present and future. The book is broken down into six parts: Historical Tidbits, Unsolved Conjectures, Solved Problems, Personalities, Concrete and Abstract Matters, and Interdisciplinary Potpourri.

The stories in Historical Tidbits are appealing and relatable to everyone, discussing things such as the mathematics behind why leap years exist, as well as the dysfunctional competitive family dynamics of the Bernoulli family (including the tale of a resentful father framing his son for plagiarism). This chapter makes relatively light use of actual mathematics, but still does a great job explaining the mathematical concepts that are discussed. Unsolved Conjectures and Solved Problems profile some of the most famous problems that puzzled mathematicians for centuries as well as problems whose solutions are still unknown to this day. These chapters are considerably more math heavy, but Szpiro does such a great job explaining some complicated ideas of the problems that readers do not have to be aware of how the actual math works to at least have a vague understanding of the problems discussed. Ask someone to describe a math professor, and they’ll likely describe a tedious old man in a tweed jacket dully giving a lecture in a monotone voice. Personalities challenges that view by offering a glimpse into the interesting personal lives of some quirky mathematicians. Super Mario Rpg Wad Ntsc S. Concrete and Abstract Matters and Interdisciplinary Potpourri offer many stories that illustrate just how much mathematics affects almost every aspect of daily life. Loola Colors Limited Edition.