nonfiction/202307##_MathsUnwrapped_BookReview.txt at main · PeterHorniak/nonfiction · GitHub

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- mention serimats extinction prep
- also how want son to grow up math literate, and want to make maths a tool rather than just something to respect from afar
- read up on Continuous Fractions, and add examples to https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continued_fraction
- contact authors about how much of book can include in review, whether they plan 2nd edition

Maths Unwrapped: The Easy Way to Understand & Master Mathematics, by Mattias Ribbing

Trigger warning: discusses maths, math education.

THE REVIEW

The first paragraph is titled "More than just a textbook", and gives the generic spiel of the wonderful world of mathematics and how much fun we will have. If you are like me, and tried many math books, you will skip this.
If you are even more like me, you will find that it ACTUALLY DOES THE THING IT SAYS, and go back to find out why they think they got the magic working.


Another time they introduce something sounding silly is the maths car. I went quickly through the exercise and rushed to the mathy stuff. I did find it useful though.
You're meant to start imagining just some components on it, looked to me like <photoshop>. As you go through, you get explanations for what the components mean, and add new ones.


THE BACKSTORY

Trigger warning: discusses maths, math education. I am not kidding about triggering.

- math was awful. Like Keltham /HPMOR said, trauma centers.
- Was not the teacher. Was probably my fav one. When we had substitute teachers, you could clearly see the difference when the teacher doesn't give a damn that their explanation doesn't work for you.

- reusing greek letters to mean different things is dumb. Seriously, how did noone think of using another alphabet? Must have read 5 books that said our numbers come from India. Did noone think to steal some letters while at it? For this book review, will be using ग to mean xyz, प to mean abc.
I don't have many advantages with maths, yet one myst be that i didn't grow up writing in greek. At least the symbols were foreign to me and not an extra layer of confusion. I looked up greek performance on places using their alphabet all over the place, and found that they do ... compared to the average. Correlation is not causation I know. zhey, there's another phrase that needs to be shortened as in dath ilani. I propose ड ा to show two phenomena coocurring but not connected .


I tried reading old maths texts from Gutenberg.org because figured the originals could give a different perspective from modern explanations. Maybe new angle would give new insight? WRONG. Or rather yes, the insight was that Newton is an elitist 🤬 who wrote convolutedly so only his peers who had time to waste could understand it.
As an aside,
Footnote for ** ं: i don't like swears. Could be i was raised never to swear. I was literally not taught the word fart, I was told it was "releasing a dove". When I moved to home country as a 9-yearold, and my peer group was about as understanding as you'd expect. Is this a joke? Yes. The joke was on me, for my mother was a sadist.

yet want to capture the emotion of swears.


THE FULL MATHS CAR
<Krita>


LINKIES
I wrote via Github. If you wanna see editing process in action, access via <link>.


I am so grateful to the authors, that I will list every math error, prose typo , and vagueness in their book. I'm sure they will understand the compliment.


Also thankyou to whoever vandalised the library book by adding correct solutions. Made me realise I was on right track. I was sorely tempted to add my own, but librarians would already be on lookout.
Also, typing these out on a phone keyboard was easy when realised we stole greek letters for symbols.
If you find a correction to my correction, please post it in the comments!

VAGUENESSES
Page 68, paragraph 7
A negative base raised to the power of an odd number, such as 3, 9, or 27, will always be negative.
-> A negative base raised to the power of an odd number, such as ^3, ^9, or ^27, will always be negative.


CORRECTIONS

EXERCISE 19.6, page 67
2/π + sqrt(2)/5
= (10/5π)+((√2)π/5π)
= (10+(√2)π)/(5π)
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%282%2Fπ%29%2B%28√2%2F5%29
Stated answer is (10+√2)/(5π)

EXERCISE 19.7, page 67
1/(-π) + √2/2
= (-1)/π + √2/2
= (-2)/2π + (√2)π/2π
= ((√2)π - 2)/2π
Stated answer is -2 + √(2π)/2π

Page 69, figure 5
(-7/9)^3 = 7^3 / 9^3
-> (-7/9)^3 = (-7)^3 / 9^3