It’s perfect book to end a stressful semester. Basically
this is my last requirement for this academic year in UP, thus, I should enjoy
it. I did! Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities by Ian Stewart was the most
enjoyable one among all books I have read for book reviews. At first I thought
it will be another typical nerdish book that goes into deeper math, however, it
was the opposite of everything I have thought. Honestly, it wasn’t stressful to
read at all. You’ll just catch yourself enjoying the book and you wouldn’t just
mind what time is it.
The author started by introducing to the readers the
concept and idea behind the title. He stated that “Curiosities is a sample from
my cabinet, a miscellany of intriguing mathematical games, puzzles, stories,
and factoids” and this statement has reflected the series of fun that
overflowed on the book. He then started the flow of the book. Reading along, I
have already encountered some of the games, tricks and logics written. The
logic of “Difference triangles” has caught my attention since it was my first
time to read and learn on this. It is crazy to think that this simple trick or
logic has deeper concept behind as apprehended by mathematicians. Continuing, I
have observed how patterns are present in almost all these tricks. Thus, this
vibrates that mathematics, in any form is indeed the science of patterns. He
was truly right when he said that “the mathematics we did not learn in school
is more fun”.
“Extracting the cherry” was indeed a tricky one though if
you’ll know the answer, you think you’re just fooling yourself around. I have
experienced to play this game since high school and if I haven’t looked at the
answer on the book, I swear, it will take me hours to guess it. “Make Me a Pentagon”
was also a good one. I have deduced that these previous two games that I have
mentioned require two things: logical thinking or luck. Well, I think it isn’t
game of luck but it implies analysis. Now I laughed at “Empty Glasses”. I was
critically thinking how to answer the game, yet all you need is common sense! I
remember that way back home, my brother used to have these tricks and throw it
on me. And yes, I can’t answer these easy tricks since al I thought was that it
needs intelligence.
Going through, I stopped at the “Compensating Errors”
entry. I remembered having this type of question during mathematic quiz bowls
in high school. I like this entry since you should use your brain to answer
this. Also, I believe everyone will agree that the feeling of answering this
type of question is just indescribable! The logic of true or false has always been
my weakness. And here we go on the entry of “Spelling mistakes”. The statement
was “‘Thare are five mistukes im this centence.’ True or false?”. Now I have
again analyzed this logic trying to figure out the correct answer so that for
the first time, I can be able to answer true-or-false logic correctly. As expected, I failed. I have not
included the claim that there are 5 mistakes in the statement as the 5th
mistake. Maybe next time I can guess or answer correctly.
As I move along the book, I felt really interested on
each entry. However, there are some entries that I quite skipped. The reason is
that either I have already encountered it or it’s just that it’s quite too long
to read and comprehend. Moreover, I still looked for some that could astonish
me, omething that holds both analysis and common sense.
“Don’t let go!” Okay, maybe this would be it. I tried to
not look at the answer on the answer key. This segment is all about topology
which deals with shapes, thus, geometry is involved. I believe that this should
include imagination, especially the fact that I don’t have any rope in this
coffee shop that I am in right now. Somehow, I got it right. My body has
involvement to the answer to the topological theorem. Though I didn’t get the
answer directly and accurately, at least I had the hint on my mind.
Allow me to discuss one last segment before generalizing
my ideas and thoughts on the book of Ian Stewart. Since I am interested to
philosophy, lastly, I will include in this short review the entry “Logical or
Not?” I thought I really had to review the principle behind statements being
logical or not. Basically, I really thought it was not logical, and I was
right. The problem was that I wasn’t able to think why it is not logical. Thus,
as an answer to my question, I read on page 288 for the answer. Amazingly, it
included some arithmetic to further prove the sensibility of the statement.
Other puzzles were indeed fun. However, I have only
included those I am interested the most in this book review. Indeed, it was a
fun book to read upon. The author was successful on dealing with the readers. I
also thought that I can use some of the entries to play with my cousins.
Moreover, the book did not just address fun and playing with logics, but also
the idea of mathematics as well as patterns behind these mathematical puzzles.
With this, I end my Math 1 course in UP with a smile. J
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