Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin & Michael Shermer

Secrets of Mental Math by Arthur Benjamin & Michael Shermer

    …Too often, math is taught as a set of rigid rules, leaving little room for creative thinking.

This review might be considered somewhat disjoint from other reviews on this blog. Ordinarily, books that are 'too practical' or read simply for utilitarian purposes have not been dwelled upon with as much thought as given to other works of literature. This book will not be exception, since it ends up being both a practical as well as a thought-provoking work.

It is true that this work mainly deals with mathematical shortcuts and some guesstimation techniques that, with practice, can help reader do some quick practical as well as fun math. However, I believe the real gems of the book are not the shortcuts. Instead it is authors' belief that anyone can do quick mathematical calculations in their mind. The authors do not try to persuade the reader of this belief only by reasoning with them. Instead, they demonstrate improvement of mathematical capabilities as the work progresses by increasing both the challenges and motivation. In no way is this work cumbersome to read. Indeed, even those who might have loathed using their mathematical faculties in their formative years may come to think of some parts as fun.

The work ends on a great essay by Shermer "How math helps us think about weird things", in which he notes thus: "I don’t want to pontificate about how mathematics in school teaches students to think critically, because that has probably been said by nearly every math teacher in nearly every math class in nearly every school in America, at least once a year."  I think this quote is, in some sense, a meta-commentary of the work itself. The book is acutely demonstrative & practical, yet might remind the reader of Bach's seagull- “He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”. In this idea of human limitlessness, even an abstraction lover will begin to appreciate a likeness for the practical.

As a confession, the reviewer did skip many parts that he seemed fit only for a mathemagician. Yet, the parts he did read felt nothing short of some fun!

I strongly recommend this book for everyone who wants to learn how to have fun with numbers or wants to improve their practical mathematics skills.