Odd Numbers

A lively exploration of everyday arithmetic processes, demonstrating their value, power and enduring interest.

Herbert McKay (Author)

9781108002820, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

228 pages
27.5 x 17.3 x 2.6 cm, 0.85 kg

Mathematics has a reputation of being dull and difficult. Here is an antidote. This lively exploration of arithmetic considers its basic processes and manipulations, demonstrating their value and power and justifying an enduring interest in the subject. With humour and insight, the author shows how basic mathematics relates to everyday life – as true now as when this book was originally published in 1940. The introductory treatment of millions, billions and even trillions could be profitably read by aspiring bankers, economists or politicians. H. G. Wells is gently teased for his mistake in applying the law of proportionality in a novel. McKay politely adjusts the astronomical scales selected by the eminent cosmologist Sir James Jeans. He confidently navigates the hazards of averages, approximations and units. For anyone interested in what numbers mean and how they can be used most effectively, this book will still educate and delight.

Preface
1. Millions and billions and trillions
2. Great powers and little powers
3. How we got logarithms
4. Proportion
5. Comparisons
6. Proportion in triangles
7. Weights and measures
8. The delusive average
9. Approximations
10. Multiplication and division
11. Tables
12. Units
13. Oddities of numbers
14. The construction and solution of problems
15. Scales of notation.

Subject Areas: Mathematics [PB]