Fun With Mathematics (Meyer)

Fun With Mathematics, Jerome S. Meyer (1952)

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Two “fun” things about this Fun with Mathematics book I rescued from my old school library are that it was checked out only twice - due dates in 1966 & 1975 - and that despite it being read, some pages were bound together. Bound, as in, they weren’t properly cut. I had to use scissors to separate some pages. (Someone, at some distant point in the past, attempted to tear them, but stopped.)

This actually was a "fun" book to read. It covered some of the fun things in mathematics, and it kept the conversation at about a high school level, even when it explored higher topics.

It started by talking about really big numbers and really small ones, and getting close approximations of numbers that aren't quite there.

How big the Romans multiply and divide using their numbers? Likely on an abacus, not in a column format. I don't know how true the explanation that a V for 5 is because your hand forms a V when you have all five fingers raised. Or that if you have one hand up and one pointed down below it, it will look like an X for all ten fingers.

Another thing that wasn't meant to be amusing, but was still interesting, was the explanation of log tables and how they were created. They were basically made to be accurate to three decimals places using approximations and the rules for logs and exponents. No one back in the old days could work all these values out. Ironically, we can work out a lot more 70 years later. (Hell, we could have done it even 30 or 40 years later!)

The fun stuff also covered Magic Squares (like seems to be a standard thing), but this went further to makes ones that only included 0, 1, 6, 8 and 9, so that we they were rotated 180 degrees, they were still magic squares. (One such square is pictured on the cover.) There were also some equations that could be reflected or rotated because of these numbers.

The odder things were the chapter on a "nomograph", which looked like a circular slide rule, and a chapter on making a slide rule out of regular rulers. (I used to have one a long time ago before I had any clue what to do with one.)

I skimmed over the "interesting problems", mostly because they seemed like the kind that I knew how to do, but I needed time to just sit there and work them out. I figured out how to make 20 out of just two 3s, so I'm good.

If We Had Known (McPhail, ed)

If We Had Known, Mike McPhail, ed (2017)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

First book of the year. (Okay, so I started it last year.) And look at the cool cover!

If We Had Known is a collection of cautionary tales of the future: what we might find out there, and what may happen to us right here. My fear going in was that it would be a collection of depressing stories, like those episodes of The Twilight Zone where that final twist just kills you. Thankfully, that isn't the case. They aren't all cheery, either, to be sure, but humanity doesn't get wiped out over and over from mistakes made because we didn't know.

The book starts off with an essay on having a necessary enemy, which turns into a fictional account before it's over, that goes through the space race and the Cold War, and pondering should we lie about an alien invasion coming, if only to get us off the planet? The greatest threat to humanity may be never leaving our planet's surface.

It's the next two stories that really get the book rolling: "The Steady Drone of Silence" by Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and "The Last Man on Earth" by Jody Lynn Nye. The former is a military sci-fi rescue/recovery mission to uncover what went wrong, where we learn that science and the military may have different end goals for any discovery or new technology. If the latter, the cumulative effect of genetic manipulation over generations may eventually reach an evolutionary dead end. (Those shouldn't be spoilers -- they're really starting points.)

Note: Danielle Ackley-McPhail is the Publisher of eSpec Books, which published this anthology, and also the spouse of the editor. Neither of those facts were the reason her story is included. Jody Lynn Nye is listed elsewhere in this blog for co-writing The Death of Sleep.

Most of the stories deal with encounters with alien races or cultures when either we go out there, or they come to us (or our colonies).

The final entry, "The Third Heaven" by Robert Greenberger, was more of a character piece than a story, but I enjoyed it, and thought it ended the book well. It was mostly a conversation between the ship's AI and a religious scientist. During the long boring months in space transit, the main character starts questioning her religious beliefs and looks to the AI for guidance. It doesn't speak down or mock in any way, which I appreciated.

There is a follow-up book, with a similar looking cover, that I have to purchase before the month is out.

2019: The Year in Review

For a year without a Challenge checklist, I had a pretty eclectic year. Granted, I didn't read as much as I would have liked, and I lost a lot of my reading time this past summer due to ... reasons. Also, at least two crossword puzzle books factored in, as I needed a diversion every now and then.

There were over three dozen posts last year, almost all of them about completed books. Only two about books that I gave the old college try before abandoning them for not being good, enjoyable, or even well-written.

There were fiction books and nonfiction, sci-fi and foreign translations, graphic novels and self-help, math book and game books, long and short.

In the graphic novel category: I discovered the series Amulet at my last school, before discovering that each issue was published about a year or more apart -- and that the final issue had not been published yet. Indeed, at the time, it probably hadn't been written yet, as #8 was not that old. There were summer comic books, most of which were disjointed collections of monthly titles, which shared a theme, but not a coherent story line because too many parts were left out. (And different included titles had different side plots.)

The odd thing was that I made no entry for One Piece and haven't since 2017 when I listed the first 27 books. I know I'm somewhere in the 30s, possibly low 40s, so I need to find out which was the last book I read, so I can catch up and make another entry. Honestly, I don't remember if I read any last year. I would have had to have put them on hold at the library. (Note: that's actually not a bad way to check on it.)

I will plug Amazon only because I tend to use their images, but because of their annual "World Book Day" where I get to download a bunch of free translations, and then proceed to read one or two of them. This year, I read another Japanese book, Go (even though I should have gone to another part of the world), and a Dutch book, An American Princess: The Many Lives of Allene Tew. The amazing thing about the Dutch book was that it took place, for the most part, in the United States, in New York and Pennsylvania. Allene Tew was born in New York at the fringes of high society, rose up and eventually married actually royalty in Europe. She died in Holland, and the author worked backward from there -- no spoilers, as the story starts with her final days, far from the place where she was born. Had I had more time to go walking this year, I thought about a tour of places she'd lived (or were mentioned in the book) -- the Manhattan ones, at least. Fascinating book, and there were some copies of original society pages included.

In the fantasy category: last year's eSpec Books sale gave me a collection of Precinct books, by Keith R. A. DeCandido (I recently found out it's "de Candid o"), except for Mermaid Precinct, which I selected after winning a flash fiction contest. (Those are gone now.) I liken it to a fantasy Barney Miller with its cast of characters that originated in roleplaying games, but are three-dimensional.

Nonfiction, other than the translation, included essay books ("Writing Science Fiction", and "Breakfast on Mars" which is NOT science fiction) and self-help. Humble and Kind was a gift book with the lyrics to the Tim McGraw song (which he didn't write) along with a short essay introduction (which he did). Speak Thai was just a quickie free ebook, which I read as a curiosity -- it didn't achieve its goal. I don't need to break up with my phone -- in fact, I need to get a better phone -- but reducing screen time wouldn't be a bad idea. And, of course, there were two math books.

Finding a challenge for 2020 may be difficult. Many are boring, or just have dumb things added. I think I did okay last year. Plus, I have a whole lot TBR.