The Magic of Math: Solving for x and Figuring Out Why by Arthur BenjaminMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
In 2010, I was intrigued and entertained by this author’s appearance and display of calculation gymnastics on The Colbert Report. In more recent years, I found his Joy of Mathematics course, a series of twenty-four half-hour lectures, rich source material for my lectures to first-year college students. I was immensely please to learn that elements of that course along with tricks of the stage used by this “mathemagician” (a title previously held by Benjamin’s inspiration Martin Gardner) were compiled into a book. The book delivers on all the promise of those two aspect of Benjamin’s talent: teacher and performer. Like Gardner, Benjamin telegraphs a joy of surprising mathematical stunts, like accurate estimates of e from one’s own phone number and the manifold discoveries waiting in Pascal’s Triangle...
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