[Blindmath] Books by Martin Gardner

[Ramana Polavarapu]

Hi Andrew and other list members,

I am looking for accessible copies of the books by Martin Gardner.  Does
anyone have any idea where I can get them?  Thank you.

Best regards,

Ramana
P.S. I changed the subject of this mail message since it is not directly
connected to "Intro".
 

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Andrew Stacey
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 1:37 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] intro

Hi,

First up, I'm a sighted mathematician.  So I can't say anything about the
hows and how-nots of doing mathematics with partial sight or no sight.
However, a couple of things in this exchange have made me want to chip in
from my perspective as a mathematician.

1. To get this out of the way, LaTeX is a typesetting system which is very
well suited to writing mathematics.  However, it is like a programming
language and so when you read it, you almost never read the actual source:
you read a compiled version.  From what I've read on this mailing list, it
seems that if what you need is not available in a suitable format then it
can be useful to get hold of the LaTeX source and read that.  However, I
would hope that there were suitable texts for you at the level that you
describe so that you don't need to worry about LaTeX yet.  To give some
context, I didn't start using LaTeX until my third year of undergraduate
studies.

2. Let me say this very loudly.

      Mathematics is not taught in school.

What is taught in school is numeracy, not mathematics.  Occasionally there
are glimpses of what is real mathematics, but for the most part it's pure
and simple numeracy.  Mathematics is about spotting patterns and seeing
connections.  Mathematics is the science of ideas: we invent a game, lay out
the rules, and then simply play it to see what happens.  What, perhaps,
separates us out from other subjects is that when we play a game then we
play strictly by the rules: we never break them.  On the other hand, we do
our best to circumvent them.  (I should say that we also have no problem
inventing and adding new rules: if we see some behaviour that we don't like
then we say "New rule!  No huffing above the diagonal."  However, then we
have a new game and we don't pretend that the old game is the same as the
new game.)

As well as what you are doing, I would recommend getting copies of the books
by Martin Gardner.  He used to write columns for Scientific American on
mathematical ideas.  All of the ones that I've read have been accessible to
almost anyone and all are about simply playing with ideas.  I find that an
excellent introduction to what mathematics really is, rather than what is
taught.

Lastly on this point, I didn't find mathematics particularly interesting
until my third year of undergraduate.  And I was doing a mathematics degree
(that is, 100% mathematics - I was in the UK where, unlike the US, you don't
"major"
in a subject, you do just that subject).

Andrew

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