Customer Reviews

Math-A-Day: A Book of Days for Your Mathematical Year

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I'm generally very critical about current math and puzzle books. I don't want to brag, but at last count, I owned some 150 math/puzzle books. In other words, I think can say that I've pretty much seen them all...

Well, this book is one of my favorites! Yes this book has some old chestnuts, but the majority of the problems are quite original and only difficult enough to be entertaining. It's also full of interesting historical facts, all related to math of course.

Up until now, I've generally stayed away from Pappas books. I find them a bit too elementary, but this one, I'll keep.

Thanks Theoni for a fine book.

For every day of the year there are three items; 1) a math problem (usually requires no more than high school algebra to understand) 2)an anecdote, and 3)a quote. I paticularly liked the quotes and am glad to have a reference for when I forget exactly how one goes. I think the book would be appropriate for any math fan who doesn't want something overly demanding.

Theoni Pappas seems to have a mixed reputation (at least, if we go by Amazon reviews). Some people like her art deco approach to popularizing math and like the fact that it is aimed toward kids, parents, and self-learner adults who only have a vague recollection of high school math. Others diss her books as being too simplistic, too easy, too derivative, etc.

Whichever side of that argument you fall into, I think any reasonable person that is interested in math should agree (after perusing *Math-A-Day*) that this is clearly her best book and a good popular math book by any standard.

As others have pointed out, this book is organized as mathematical vignettes for 366 days of the year (which includes leap years). Each of these math capsules includes a brainteaser-type question that requires at most high school level math knowledge, some math trivia, and a math-related quote. From what I can tell skimming through it, the problems seem to be a nice mix of relatively accessible questions that aren't too hard all the way up to fairly challenging problems requiring a lot of sophistication (although, like I said, not much knowledge).

The problems and their solutions (included in the end of the book), as well as the math trivia, should be of interest to all ages and of particular interest to those with an interest in learning as much about math as possible. This is a great book and is definitely not for juvenile primates or for drunken neighbors as suggested elsewhere. Learning about interesting mathematical trivia -- like Mayan mathematics -- should be of great interest to any genuine math lover and other clever, intelligent people.

In short, whether you like Pappas' other books or you'd like to lump them, THIS book, *Math-A-Day*, is definitely an interesting book and worthy of the attention of math lovers.

This book does a good job of keeping to ol' noodle from turning into mush. But....

Just a few days ago I was somewhat frustrated by it. When checking my answers I was led to believe that I was wrong, but after checking and rechecking and writing a program treverse the curve (Dec 21) I found that the book was incorrect on this one(don't let that stop you from working it though). Maybe I am wrong.

Another frustration was that yesterday's question (Dec 28) was a little off from the answer, it asks for area but supplies 1st of the 3 consecutive integers. The second issue has me working the problems in the fullest detail so that if another aspect of the problem is answered I'll still have the saticfaction of seeing that I had the correct answer.

I'm not knocking the book. These issues kinda' keep me on my toes. The book is great otherwise. I look forward to the next problem(day) and sometimes discover that I have completely forgotten how to answer some questions. I would quickly buy a new version of this book.

I bought this book just three days ago and I am hooked. The book has a variety of puzzles and problems that will keep you turning the pages consistently. I have bought many math puzzles books, and have been disappointed, but this book is up there with The Moscow Puzzles. Great job, Mrs. Pappas.

I picked this up when headed for N.Y. from L.A. About half of the puzzles would be stimulating to a juvenile orangoutang while of the dole roughly half required information not generally available in economy class whilst the rest stimulated my drunken seat mate to use his paper bag above Denver.

Not a `bad' book nor an evil one, a mathematical `sugar on maple syrup'. Grand if one is `stuck' somewhere and finds the Mayan counting system `essential'.