These days when we are resorting to excel and run "calc" in windows for performing even basic
math operations such as adding two digit numbers, this book has come up with a refreshing endevour preserving the essence of mathematics.
I remembers those school days when we used to memorize multiplication tables from 2 to 10. ( I had learnt from 11-20 on my own!) and used to get punishments even if we made a single mistake. The rote learning of tables was infact useful and even a learning experience.
But now the scenario has changed. The excel fever has caught everyone and we have forgotten the true fun of maths. Forget 'boolean algebra', we have forgotten even the basic algebra now!
The excel has become the greatest tools in the corporate industry. And slowly the natural calculator in the brain is getting outdated like software (but only the difference being softwares are either upgraded, or a newer version is released, but here there is a fear of completed uninstalling our brain-calculator!).
I am badly missing my maths. There is maths everywhere (call it math-American way or maths-UK-Indian way). There is maths in the intricate design of Spider webs, there is maths in the linear march of ants across the dried branch of a tree.
Alex bellos the author of the book has indeed produced a masterpiece. This book is not meant to crack any maths competition, but is an attempt to revive the lost interest in mathematics to people. It is like a blast from the past which reminds people how useful isour brain which has the capacity of a million computers.
The book doesn’t have any complex formulae or doesn’t help/provide any shortcuts to memorize any theorems. It tries to inculcate a sense of having a mathematical mind, which definitely strikes a chord of a long lost math ability in each one of us.
The author's approach is simple, to express maths in a novel way interms of amusing anectodes and interesting events. One of the author's adventures is quite riveting- he travels to India to Puri during the Rath yathra( I had been to Puri long back but on a normal day) and go through newspaper in the hotel where he has checked in. The headline says- ‘5 Crore more Indians than the govt thought’ – which is nearly the population of whole England! And the more fascinating observation is the way in which the paper mentioned it as a casual note.
India is large.. and Large! The numbers are big here. The population of Bangalore city is 80 Lakhs which is equal to the population of a country-Switzerland! We see people on the streets at any point of time and to an outsider this might seem very strange and chaotic, but we have grown in habit of dealing with huge numbers. And doesn’t make much of a difference!
A beautiful representation of Indian Big numbers is mentioned in the book- which the Buddha expresses:
And this is just the smallest counting system (tallakshana) and there are 6 higher counting systems above this.. Just Imagine!
The book has many more facts which make it a splendid read.
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