I loved Dr. LeWinter's class, and I love his book
I graduated from SUNY Purchase in 2001. Dr. LeWinter's History of Mathematics was one of the last classes I took before graduating. Because I have dyscalculia, I wasn't able to pass an actual math course, so my advisor suggested this speciality class. It was amazing. Marty LeWinter brought his guitar in every day, recited poetry, and had us create math-related poems for homework. His class was geared toward students who were doing badly in math but needed a math class to pass. Thanks to Dr. LeWinter's teaching -- and his textbook, now sold on Amazon -- I had so much fun learing math, without the headaches.
easy read, but be wary of the "history" of civilizations
I enjoyed reading this book until I got to Chapter 5 which I found to be inaccurate about Islamic history, not to mention extremely offensive. It would be different if the statements were true, but they're untrue and unneccesarily harsh. Other than that, this book is easy to understand and is quite humorous. I would recommend it for people who would like to learn the history of math, but I feel there are better resources out there to learn about the history of civilizations.
I finally understand math
I never appreciated my math courses in school. As a returning adult, I really found this book easily explains the concepts it is trying to get across. I especially liked the Chinese numbers. It is nice to learn about math from other cultures. I now want to learn more math. Thank You, Lewinter and Widulski, I hope you guys write more math books.
An Excellent Book!!!!
This book covers Egyptian mathematics through to todays computers. It takes you on a journey through "mathematics" time. But the best part is even I understood it which says quite alot. I especially enjoyed the humor (Yes, a math book with humor) and the historical tidbits. I love this book!!
math affects everything!
fun to read; full of history; math was easy to follow; showed
impact of math on science, music, art, navigation, computers and philosophy; every parent should read this for when their kid says, "i hate math"...i loved the picture proof that the first n
odd numbers add up to n squared (like 1 + 3 + 5 + 7 = 16 which is 4 squared)...i envy the authors' students!
(5 reviews)
