“Pure mathematics is
the world’s best game. It is more absorbing than chess, more of a gamble than
poker, and lasts longer than Monopoly. It’s free. It can be played anywhere –
Archimedes did it in a bathtub.” – Richard J. Trudeau
In
Professor Stewart’s Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, a book by Ian Stewart,
the attention is given to the mathematics that is not taught in school. It
depicts that the mathematics we learn at school is not the only mathematics in
the world. It is about the oddities of mathematics from games to puzzles and
also includes facts and tidbits about mathematics that will give you the
feeling that you have satisfied your curiosity when you didn’t even realize you
were curious about it in the first place. In this book, Professor Stewart shows
that the real fun of mathematics can be found elsewhere. A collection of the
most entertaining curiosities of mathematics is contained in this book.
He
starts off this book by talking about how it all began with one notebook that
he kept to write about the interesting details of math that wasn’t taught in
school. One notebook led to another and then another and soon, he had a cabinet
of them. Afterwards is a series of short math-related stories that show the fun
side of mathematics. The first was about the three aliens belonging to
different species: one that tells the truth and one that lies. The second was a
math trick called Tap an Animal. The next one is about the math tricks through
the calculations done by a calculator. Next are segments about the triangle of
cards, how to make a pop-up dodecahedron, the sliced fingers trick and the
topology behind it, the short story on how many turnips did the farmer sell, a
descriptive background of the four-color theorem, a mathematical problem in the
form of a story about the lady, a knight and dogs, a shaggy cat story, a
mathematical problem about rabbits in a hat, river crossing puzzles and other
kinds of puzzles, making a pentagon and the definition and value of pi. Then
there is another puzzle, this time about empty glasses. More puzzles and
stories can also be found in this book including those about the knight in
chess, a mathematician’s knot, cats with white tails, mathematical jokes, dice,
a Greek cross, round numbers, the bridges of Konigsberg, Euler’s pentagonal
holiday, Ouroborean rings, the ourotorus, Pythagoras, Fermat’s Last Theorem,
prime factoids, squares, hexagons, wallpaper patterns, age problems, cubes,
magic stars, the square wheel, why can’t you divide by zero, percentages,
numerical spells, spelling, the universe, the golden number, Fibonacci numbers,
the plastic number and many more. After all the mathematical puzzles, games,
anecdotes and stories were introduced to the reader, Professor Stewart shows
the answers and gives a short informative yet funny explanation to each. This
book is literally filled with lots of interesting bites of mathematics that
start off simple at first then become more challenging as you get deeper into
it.
What I like most about this book is how it was
arranged and organized. I felt like I was playing a fun game instead of just
plainly reading something about math of all things. It was easy to understand
and relate to because Professor Stewart doesn’t talk about mathematics from a
normal teacher’s point of view but from a point of view that even the everyday
student can find entertaining. I like it that he understands how students see
mathematics and that he tries to instill the thrill of it in his readers. To be
honest, I was expecting it to be boring even before knowing what the book was
about but the cover peaked my interest so I read on. Then I noticed that I
wasn’t just reading about mathematical games, I was having an intellectual yet
fun conversation with the author. That was the feeling I got when I read the
book. I realized afterwards that I wasn’t simply reading about the fun side of
mathematics, I was learning from it. A type of hands-on learning that is different
from that in the classroom. When you are actually shown how mathematics is used
in real life and how it is used in an exciting way that stimulates your desire
for answers. This book has made me realize that mathematics isn’t as dull and
boring as we thought it would be. Mathematics is actually a game, we just think
of it negatively because we always seem to lose. Yet, once we understand its
mechanics and we get to play it properly, we will find it as pleasurable and
enjoyable as any other game.
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