A Quick History of Math: From Counting Cavemen to Computers

Clive Gifford

Feb 2021 · Wide Eyed Editions

About this ebook

Math + history + jokes - boring bits = A Quick History of Math. This book begins around 43,000 years ago with a notched baboon leg, the Lebombo bone (the very first mathematical object in the world) and rushes us past Hindu numerals and the invention of zero, via Pythagoras, Pascal and probability, right up to the present day, with big data and the maths that rules our digital lives. Geometri-cool!
 
You will discover:

• How to count on your fingers (there are more ways than you might think!)
• Why we have 60 seconds in a minute (hint: it’s to do with the ancient Babylonians)
• How to count like an Egyptian (using hieroglyphs)
• Why it’s hip to be square using square numbers
• A Pythagorean party trick
• The naked truth of Archimedes’ bath time mathematics
• How to do matha-magic with magic squares
• …and much more.

In chronological order from pre-history to present day, this is the story of maths itself. It’s 43,000 years of human mathematical endeavor squeezed into one book for your reading pleasure. Illustrated with funny cartoons and packed with fascinating facts, you’ll be laughing and learning how to be a better mathematician.
 

Ratings and reviews

Welcome to the world of Maths Can Be Fun! See counting through early ages using fingers, runes, the abacus, and the Greeks who really moved things along using square roots and all. Which gave rise to Geometry, Algebra, Trig, and into the mysteries of Calculus. There are even things to learn from the Maya, Arabs, Chinese, India, Fibonacci sequence (the Golden Code of all nature), and the workings of computers thanks to people like Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage in the 19th century! With humor, terrific illustrations, and practical demonstrations of mysterious things, this is a great book for middle grades to retired great-grandmas. Love it! Great gift for the local library or even your school! I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Quarto Publishing Group – Wide Eyed Editions via NetGalley. Thank you!

About the author

Clive Gifford has traveled to more than 70 countries, climbed rocket launch towers, ridden on robots, and flown gliders. He's had more than 200 books published and has received nominations for or won Royal Society, School Library Association, Smithsonian, and TES awards. He won the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Book with Facts 2019 for his title The Colors of History (QEB). Clive lives in Manchester, UK.