The book I decided to read for class is called The Number Mysteries written by Marcus Du Sautoy. This book was a great read for mathematicians and non-mathematicians. It was all about how math is everywhere in our lives. When I say everywhere, I mean literally everywhere. We use math daily and many times do not even realize when we are using it. The author gave us some specific math tips and left a million dollar questions for us to try and solve at the end of each chapter. I will reflect on the five chapters in this book with what they were about and how it helps us shape the math world.
Chapter one was called the curious incident of the never-ending primes. This chapter, as you could probably guess, is all about primes. He questioned why a lot of star soccer players wear prime numbers and if prime number out on a field would make the team win. This was weird to me because if everyone on the field was wearing a prime number, how would that make them play better. He talked about how primes are in music, specifically rhythms and chords. Primes are everywhere and even though some people might not technically know what a prime number is they see it and could even use it daily.
Chapter two was called the story of the elusive shape. This chapter was interesting. Have you ever wondered why if you blew bubbles with a square frame it still comes out as a sphere? I know I have. Well its because nature is lazy. The reason nature picks a sphere is because a sphere is the shape that requires the least amount of energy. This chapter talks about what the best shape for packing is and how nature knows all this. Which seems crazy. You look at nature and everything is the way it is for a reason. It is not just random. Everything has a purpose from the way leaves are shaped to the way snowflakes are shaped. Shapes are everywhere and everything has a shape.
Chapter three is called the secret of the winning streak. This chapter really allowed you to see different kinds of math in things we do for fun and things you did not know could require math to help win. The first game that everyone loves that it talked about was rock paper scissors. For this game, it is all about patterns. Usually when players play this game they can latch on to a pattern of doing rock a lot so when you see this pattern act right away with the wining move. Your best bet to win rock paper scissors is to be very inconsistent with what you pick. In this chapter it also talked about how to win at games like poker, the lottery, and roulette. It was a lot about probability and it went deeper into the math but for me I tended to get lost and confused in the math. If you want to know the math behind winning these games you should check this book out.
Chapter four is called the case of the uncrackable code. Codes are everywhere. English is a code made up of 26 alphabetical letters. Some well known albums have Morse code on them like one of Coldplay’s albums and one of The Beetles albums. When you buy something online your credit card gets sent to the store as a code, which makes it harder for hackers to get your credit card number. This chapter also talks about the clock calculator. This of course is modulo. Our clock is in modulo 12 and we use it everyday. If you asked a random person what modulo 12 is they would have no idea what that means but they use it everyday. That how they know if they took a nap at 9 and woke up 4 hours later the time is 1 not 13.
Chapter five is called the quest to predict the future. This chapter talked about how being able to predict the future relies on math. The reason we can predict when things like when solar eclipses are going to happen is because of the pattern of them previously happening. We now know that eclipses happen every 19 years. This is just the start. We can see these patterns in nature as well and can predict things about plants and animals. In this chapter it also talked about Galileo and how he tries to predict something about to same shaped soccer balls with heavier masses. Most people would think that if you had two soccer balls one filled with cement and the other one with air that the one filled with cement would fall faster but that’s not true. They actually both fall at the same time. If you don’t believe me test it for yourself!
Overall this book was a great read. Some parts lost me but it was actually really interesting being able to actually see how they are doing the math. This book opened up my eyes to actually how much we see and use math on a day-to-day basis. Math is everywhere. Plus if you are really interested in certain chapters you can always try to figure out the million dollar questions and become a millionaire. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone if they want to be intrigued with mathematics.
Chapter one was called the curious incident of the never-ending primes. This chapter, as you could probably guess, is all about primes. He questioned why a lot of star soccer players wear prime numbers and if prime number out on a field would make the team win. This was weird to me because if everyone on the field was wearing a prime number, how would that make them play better. He talked about how primes are in music, specifically rhythms and chords. Primes are everywhere and even though some people might not technically know what a prime number is they see it and could even use it daily.
Chapter two was called the story of the elusive shape. This chapter was interesting. Have you ever wondered why if you blew bubbles with a square frame it still comes out as a sphere? I know I have. Well its because nature is lazy. The reason nature picks a sphere is because a sphere is the shape that requires the least amount of energy. This chapter talks about what the best shape for packing is and how nature knows all this. Which seems crazy. You look at nature and everything is the way it is for a reason. It is not just random. Everything has a purpose from the way leaves are shaped to the way snowflakes are shaped. Shapes are everywhere and everything has a shape.
Chapter three is called the secret of the winning streak. This chapter really allowed you to see different kinds of math in things we do for fun and things you did not know could require math to help win. The first game that everyone loves that it talked about was rock paper scissors. For this game, it is all about patterns. Usually when players play this game they can latch on to a pattern of doing rock a lot so when you see this pattern act right away with the wining move. Your best bet to win rock paper scissors is to be very inconsistent with what you pick. In this chapter it also talked about how to win at games like poker, the lottery, and roulette. It was a lot about probability and it went deeper into the math but for me I tended to get lost and confused in the math. If you want to know the math behind winning these games you should check this book out.
Chapter four is called the case of the uncrackable code. Codes are everywhere. English is a code made up of 26 alphabetical letters. Some well known albums have Morse code on them like one of Coldplay’s albums and one of The Beetles albums. When you buy something online your credit card gets sent to the store as a code, which makes it harder for hackers to get your credit card number. This chapter also talks about the clock calculator. This of course is modulo. Our clock is in modulo 12 and we use it everyday. If you asked a random person what modulo 12 is they would have no idea what that means but they use it everyday. That how they know if they took a nap at 9 and woke up 4 hours later the time is 1 not 13.
Chapter five is called the quest to predict the future. This chapter talked about how being able to predict the future relies on math. The reason we can predict when things like when solar eclipses are going to happen is because of the pattern of them previously happening. We now know that eclipses happen every 19 years. This is just the start. We can see these patterns in nature as well and can predict things about plants and animals. In this chapter it also talked about Galileo and how he tries to predict something about to same shaped soccer balls with heavier masses. Most people would think that if you had two soccer balls one filled with cement and the other one with air that the one filled with cement would fall faster but that’s not true. They actually both fall at the same time. If you don’t believe me test it for yourself!
Overall this book was a great read. Some parts lost me but it was actually really interesting being able to actually see how they are doing the math. This book opened up my eyes to actually how much we see and use math on a day-to-day basis. Math is everywhere. Plus if you are really interested in certain chapters you can always try to figure out the million dollar questions and become a millionaire. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone if they want to be intrigued with mathematics.