Arithmetic

Let me first say that Paul Lockhart's previous two books have easily made my top 5 list of most powerful Mathematics books. This one makes the cut as well, and has exceeded my expectations once again. His writing is profound and entertaining, and quite literally improves my life as a teacher, as well as a human being fascinated by the art of learning an discovery. This volume in particular expands his previous discussions on number and its connection to Algebra, Geometry and Calculus (topics from his previous books). I state these different math categories as if there are borders, although ironically, Paul shows in beautiful simplicity how all these math fields fit together under the art of explanation of patterns. I clearly recommend this book, as well as his previous two books. "Measurement" and " A Mathematician's Lament ". Mathematician's Lament was a life changing experience and deeply humorous as well.

I wish I could afford to buy this book for every college student working on an elementary degree. I've read Paul Lockhart's earlier book. And I have his book, Measurement, on my to-do list.First, a reply to some who found it too simple. Yes, this is elementary. Maybe you did learn this when you were in school. But I am a product of the local public school and a teacher of 10 years, some of those years in a top 3 ranked school in South Carolina (which was a private school. And in South Carolina, none-the-less. But our SAT/ACT and AP Scores were ranked alongside the public schools as well). I think I have some room to say that most if not all students are NOT taught or reinforced with this understanding and relationship with the subject. I taught as a Learning Specialist. That is, I helped students who wanted it to become better students at learning. I helped students at whatever subject troubled them. Algebra and Geometry were regulars for me all the years. And from my experience with them, what Paul Lockhart explains here was not in their books nor reinforced in the classroom. I did my best to bring it to them.If you have read his earlier book, then you are familiar with his style of writing, which I enjoyed. Other than that, Paul Lockhart has the understand and experience to help the reader gain a personal understand of Arithmetic that isn't confined to the Industrial Age manipulation we live with today. This includes the understanding that this is not confined to some utilitarian value.HERE IS THE BIG DIFFERENCE I see between Utilitarian Public School and Lockhart's understanding of Arithmetic: Public Schools help students understand and known and the already discovered process for getting to the already known answer in terms of systems and rules. Lockhart sees it in terms of options and tools discovered and created on the way to understanding the character of entities and ways to arrange it 'for ease of communication and comparison'.

This is one very fascinating, eye opening work. It will have you looking at numbers in a different way. I wish math class would have been like this but maintaining order comes first.Be sure to have pencil and paper on hand to work through the sample exercises throughout the book.

Paul Lockhart is a great writer and he loves mathematics. This combination means that his mathematical writing is infectious. The reader cannot help but get a buzz when they read one of Paul's books. With his latest one, Arithmetic, Paul takes the reader on a small adventure to learn how ancient counting systems worked. From there, he moves on to operations like multiplication and division, and then to fractions, negative numbers, and then probabilities.I like how he provides clear examples, and also how he injects a small amount of humor into his writing. There is no reason at all that a book about mathematics should be boring, should it?I would recommend Paul's book to anyone who wants to know about counting systems and/or mathematical operations.

This book is part history and part philosophy of arithmetic. He also includes a few exercises in italics (one every few pages).I love his easygoing tone (arithmetic is not mathematics, it's an art or craft, something like knitting, I enjoy it, and I hope you will), his low-key sense of humor, and his perspective.I loved his book Measurement, and look forward to someday working through all the challenging problems in it. This one is much easier, and yet it's not boring for me.It would be a lovely book to read to kids and think through together.Sadly, Lockhart is sometimes sexist. On page 45 he mentions the (Japanese) emperor's concubines, and says "Now, this is why people do arithmetic!" (To please the concubines.) No. It's not. And I thought better of you, Paul Lockhart.I still think I'm going to love 99% of this book...]

If you have a young child in your family who is struggling with the tedious and nonsensical math curriculum that is the "common core", you may find that reading this together at bedtime is helpful to grasp some basic ideas behind counting and comparing numbers. Myself and the little one I've read this with have truly benefited from the authors calm and basic way of explaining the world of arithmetic and gained a few tools to shrug off some of the white noise that is offered in the local school system. Have you ever wondered why your kitchen counter is called a "counter"?