Jerry P. King
Mathematics in 10 Lessons
Galileo told us many years ago that, if you want to understand nature, you must read her book. And the book of nature, Galileo said, is written in mathematics. Without mathematics there would be no modern world - no technology, and no science beyond mere description. Go to any bookstore and choose any book that purports to explain natural phenomena. That book’s seriousness can be measured exactly by the depth of the mathematics in which it is written. If the book you chose contains little or no mathematics then you can be certain your book explains real-world phenomena only descriptively.
When scientists or engineers speak about the real world they speak in a language called mathematics. If you want to understand them you must understand a certain amount of mathematics. There is no other way. The necessity to understand mathematics is that simple, and that important.
A basic idea of Mathematics in Ten Lessons is that the best way to learn mathematics is to first learn some small piece of mathematics precisely and correctly. If you learn some part of mathematics correctly, then you can learn any part of mathematics if you must learn it or if you simply wish to learn it. Consequently, the book emphasizes the fundamental principles on which the subject is based.
You need not memorize. Learn the principles truly and well and the rest of mathematics simply flows.
Editor: Erind Pajo
Mathematics in 10 Lessons
Jerry King Mathematics in 10 Lessons: The Grand Tour Prometheus Books 394 pages, 9 x 6 inches ISBN 978 1591026860
Available here →June 3, 2009
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Jerry P. King
Jerry P. King is professor emeritus of mathematics and dean emeritus of the graduate school at Lehigh University, where he spent 45 years teaching mathematics and was awarded two prestigious teaching awards. He is the author of two books, The Art of Mathematics and Mathematics in 10 Lessons: The Grand Tour. He is also the author of numerous research papers in mathematics, mainly in the general area of complex analysis.
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Mathematics lives in the mind like Macbeth's dagger, and mathematicians make and judge it by aesthetic standards.
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