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A review by chaitanyasethi
Alex's Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of Mathematics by Alex Bellos
5.0
'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' is a book that I would want everyone to read. Part history, part sociology, and part philosophy, it traces the origins of man's desire to introduce numbers and counting into his life and how that choice has led to the growth of Mathematics today.
While it may sound strange to us, the desire to question the need for math, Alex sets the ball rolling right from the first chapter(the zeroth, in the book) where he introduces a tribal community in the Amazon who don't have the vocabulary for numbers beyond 5 because they have no need for counting the things they own. It is at that point he makes you realize how much about the math around us we take for granted - why do we have a base 10 for counting, how did the names for the numbers come about, how did humans over the world establish math as a globally standard way of communicating, and where did the ideas for concepts like probability, statistics, and infinity come from?
He also explores what he terms 'ethnomathematics' - the approach of different cultures towards Mathematics; how Indians(Hindus) have made Vedic math as a symbol of past glory and how Japanese have made mental arithmetic and the abacus a mark of intelligence. He's also traced the link of innovations and ideas over time - how one idea led to another and it snowballed into fads and theories. There are sprinkles of neat mathematical tricks and patterns to amuse the reader - curious little observations and theorems. There are references to religion and how many people associated the exploration of math to getting closer to divinity.
Although it runs nearly 450 pages, it is a book one can breeze through. The writing is easy to follow and so are the mathematical explanations(for the most part). In any case, the point isn't to grasp the math but the philosophy behind it. If you'd like to spend some time being impressed with the ingenuity of brilliant minds who lived before us and had the ability to invent these concepts, then this book would be a field day for you.
While it may sound strange to us, the desire to question the need for math, Alex sets the ball rolling right from the first chapter(the zeroth, in the book) where he introduces a tribal community in the Amazon who don't have the vocabulary for numbers beyond 5 because they have no need for counting the things they own. It is at that point he makes you realize how much about the math around us we take for granted - why do we have a base 10 for counting, how did the names for the numbers come about, how did humans over the world establish math as a globally standard way of communicating, and where did the ideas for concepts like probability, statistics, and infinity come from?
He also explores what he terms 'ethnomathematics' - the approach of different cultures towards Mathematics; how Indians(Hindus) have made Vedic math as a symbol of past glory and how Japanese have made mental arithmetic and the abacus a mark of intelligence. He's also traced the link of innovations and ideas over time - how one idea led to another and it snowballed into fads and theories. There are sprinkles of neat mathematical tricks and patterns to amuse the reader - curious little observations and theorems. There are references to religion and how many people associated the exploration of math to getting closer to divinity.
Although it runs nearly 450 pages, it is a book one can breeze through. The writing is easy to follow and so are the mathematical explanations(for the most part). In any case, the point isn't to grasp the math but the philosophy behind it. If you'd like to spend some time being impressed with the ingenuity of brilliant minds who lived before us and had the ability to invent these concepts, then this book would be a field day for you.