Okay, a book on math that's over 600 pages long! Can I get through this?
Well, I've read over 600 pages of Charles Beaumont stories, so why not? Not thOkay, a book on math that's over 600 pages long! Can I get through this?
Well, I've read over 600 pages of Charles Beaumont stories, so why not? Not that it will be easy to choke down this much math, but it's surely possible with a bit of discipline.
Hogben starts with an interesting story about how Diderot was shamed in a public debate with Euler, who presented a purported mathematical proof of the existence of God. Because Diderot had no knowledge of algebra, he conceded the debate and walked out. Weird, eh?
Hogben then explains how Achilles can catch up to the tortoise. He explains why this was such a puzzle to the Ancient Greeks, and how the puzzle can be elegantly and simply solved by present-day, grade-school mathematical expressions and a simple graphical diagram. This is weird, too! To think that the giants of Greek thought could be so stumped by such a simple problem for lack of simple tools and simple language that everyone takes for granted nowadays.
I was particularly intrigued by the following introductory comment:
"Our studies in mathematics are going to show us that whenever the culture of a people loses contact with the common life of mankind and becomes exclusively the plaything of the leisure class, it is becoming a priestcraft. It is destined to end, as does all priestcraft, in superstition."
