50 Maths Ideas (Tony Crilly)

The full name of the book is "50 Maths Ideas You Really Need to Know". It has got 50 chapters, as the book-name suggests. Each chapter is exactly 4 pages long.

You get more fun out of the book if you solve some Maths problems on the side, as you read along each chapter. The problems that you solve are in the Goldilocks zone. Not too hard, not too easy, just right. I got a feeling of achievement after solving many of these problems. I enjoyed solving the probabilities in birthday-problem (chapter#33) the most. Probability based problems always fascinated me. More so because as a student I always got them wrong due to some or other silly mistake. My main concept used to be correct though (most of the time).

There are many interesting tidbits spread across the book. For example, ancient Babylonians used base-60 numeral thousands of years ago and a part of that system survives in today's seconds-minute-hour convention (chapter#2). Indiana state legislature once wanted to legislate the value of π to a fixed number of decimals (chapter#5). And so on. I have included a list of such tidbits here.

I am also fascinated by useless Maths. Mathematics concepts which seem to be the byproduct of idle fantasizing. For example Perfect numbers(chapter#10). Interesting, but completely useless Maths by today's standards. But concepts developed for fun may become useful for critical technologies, sometimes centuries later. For example, Graph theory (chapter#29).

The motivation for buying this book dates back to my childhood. There was (and still is) a Bengali periodical for young adults named আনন্দমেলা(AnondoMaela). During Durga Pujo, there used to be a special festival number called শারদীয়া সংখ্যা(Sharodiya Shonkhya). In many of these AnondoMaela pages, there used to be essays on Maths/Physics made easy. The writer was Pothik Guho. He made a deep impact on me through his essays. Those essays forced you to solve some problems. He also did a great job connecting easy basics to elite-concepts like quantum-physics, the latest Nobel-winning topic etc. By reading those essays, one dreams of winning the Nobel prize someday. That dream was precious (whether it came to fruition or not). I want my daughter to get the same experience. While browsing this Tony Crilly book in Sapna Book House Jayanagar, I felt that this book could give my kid the experience I got from Pothik Guho. That is the reason I bought it.