The Silver Abacus

I’ve decided to write a book to help people who struggle with math. It’s still very early days, but I’ve finished the introduction, which is kind of a mathematical autobiography. I’ve decided to release this part of the book for free, so you can find out how I went from being a mediocre math student in high school to achieving a master’s degree!

Here’s the “Blurb”:

I was funneled into a remedial college math class because of the score I received on the placement test. I didn’t have the background necessary for any higher courses because I lacked the foundation and understanding I should have come away with from high school. But I didn’t lack the foundation because I was bad at math; I lacked it because math was effectively made inaccessible to me. I think this is precisely why people who feel they’re bad at math get that impression of themselves. It has nothing to do with their ability, but with their relationship with math during a turbulent and emotional time in their lives.

I truly believe that anyone can learn math. Some of us may learn it differently or require different approaches, others may take a long time to grasp the more abstract concepts, but I don’t believe there’s anyone out there who simply can’t do math, only those for whom access to it has been denied, and afterwards, those who won’t, out of a sense of self-preservation.

I don’t believe for a minute that this book is going to make everyone who reads it run out and sign up to become a mathematician. What I hope it does do is show you that it is possible; that just because you didn’t do well in math in high school doesn’t mean you can’t still learn.

I hope you enjoy my story, and the lessons and concepts that follow. It comes to you with hope and optimism to find the strength and courage to get out there and prove to yourself that you are worth everything you put into you.

Click here to download a FREE PDF of Chapter 0.

I’ll post again each time I finish a chapter, and you’ll have the chance to buy just that chapter, or wait until the book is finished and buy the whole thing.

* or 0.4, 40, 400, etc.

To multiply a number by four, double it and then double it again! Remember to disregard any decimal points or zeros when starting the calculation.
Continue reading

This trick actually incorporates a few other tricks. Some we’ve already learned. One in particular is brand new, and another isn’t so much a trick as a sensible approach…
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I’ve been reading What Counts? by Brian Butterworth. It’s a very worthwhile read for anyone interested in the psychology of learning. The book’s subtitle “How Every Brain is Hardwired for Math*” is appropriate, but not quite complete. I think Mr Butterworth’s book, although aimed at understanding the mathematical brain, goes a long way to explain learning in general. Continue reading

I read this trick in a book called What Counts? by Brian Butterworth.

To square a number, say “N”, add a small number “a” to it to make it a round number.

Then find (N+a) x (N-a) +a².

Here are some examples: Continue reading

This is a great mnemonic (way of remembering) what the sign of your answer should be when multiplying positive and negative numbers:

Think:
good = pos
bad = neg
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This is just one example of some very funny errors I found on the “OnlineMathLearning.com” Web site.

This number is called the “Golden Ratio”, or the “Divine Proportion”. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers has 4 ½ pages dedicated to this number. It’s really popular among mathematicians, but artists also find it interesting and very useful. Continue reading

Numbers ending in zeros are just multiples of ten (or one hundred, or one thousand…) To divide with a number ending in zeros, ignore the zeros, do your division, then cancel the same number of zeros from the left and the right of the problem* Continue reading

These days, “Google” is a well-known search engine on the Internet. The name “Google” is a play on the word Googol*, which is the name for a number written as 1 followed by 100 zeros!

It looks like this:
10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

It’s easy to write it out; doesn’t take long at all. But if you had a googol pennies you couldn’t count them all in your lifetime. In fact, you couldn’t count them in a million lifetimes!

Here’s another number: a Googolplex, which is a 1 followed by a googol zeros. That’s so big it can’t even be written out in a million lifetimes!

*”1997: Larry and Sergey decide that [their] search engine needs a new name. After some brainstorming, they go with Google — a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. The use of the term reflects their mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.”