Strength In Numbers C

An Easygoing, Highly Entertaining Refresher on all the Math You'll Ever Need.

What do two goats and a car have to do with making good decisions? Was the golden ratio used to build the Great Pyramid of Khufu? Can it be that some numbers are unmistakably "hot," while others are inherently "cool"? With his infectiously enthusiastic and engaging style, award-winning teacher and author Sherman K. Stein offers a new appreciation for mathematics, from the beauty of its logic ("as inevitable and memorable as a Mozart symphony") to its amazing power and pervasiveness in our lives. Requiring no math knowledge beyond basic arithmetic and high school geometry, Strength in Numbers is an enlightening introduction to all the math you'll ever need.

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Math teacher Stein explains to high school students the benefits of various levels of sophistication in mathematics, in getting better jobs, protecting themselves against deceit, and developing critical thinking. He also presents some principles using simple examples, among them the characteristics of right triangles, the nature of pi, graphing, and why negative times negative is positive. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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.