Mathematician's Delight

by W.W. Sawyer

'The main object of this book is to dispel the fear of mathematics. Many people regard mathematicians as a race apart, possessed of almost supernatural powers. While this is very flattering for successful mathematicians, it is very bad for those who, for one reason or another, are attempting to learn the subject.'W.W. Sawyer's deep understanding of how we learn and his lively, practical approach have made this an ideal introduction to mathematics for generations of readers. By starting at the level of simple arithmetic and algebra and then proceeding step by step through graphs, logarithms and trigonometry to calculus and the dizzying world of imaginary numbers, the book takes the mystery out of maths. Throughout, Sawyer reveals how theory is subordinate to the real-life applications of mathematics - the Pyramids were built on Euclidean principles three thousand years before Euclid formulated them - and celebrates the sheer intellectual stimulus of mathematics at its best.

Genres: Mathematics, Science, Nonfiction, Teaching, Education, Stem

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 1943

About the author

Walter Warwick Sawyer (or W.W. Sawyer) was a mathematician, mathematics educator and author, who taught on several continents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_...

Reviews

[Sanjay · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is the first two chapters, which serves as introduction, where he teaches how a mathematician approaches the problem to solve and how he thinks, that were quite valuable to me. He suggests: it is much better to start from concrete and then go to more abstract things. Rest all chapters dealt with pure math which I did savored but was not that impressed.

7/10

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

"So long as a subject seems dull, you can be sure that you are approaching it from the wrong angle" - W.W.Sawyer

[Jerry Balzano · Rating 5 out of 5]

W. W. Sawyer is one of the best -- possibly THE best -- writer of mathematics in a "popularizing" vein. He is [was, I should say] a real teacher at heart, but every inch a true mathematician who knows all of the technical nuances as well. I strongly recommend EVERYTHING this man has written.

[Nada Khaled · Rating 3 out of 5]

يفضل ان يُقرأ في بداية مسيرة تعلم الرياضيات من الصفر، وليس في منتصفها

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

W. W. Sawyer, Mathematician's Delight (Penguin, 1943)

I approached this with some trepidation, as when I picked it up recently, I discovered a makeshift bookmark (that had a date on it-- July of 1994) stuck at the beginning of chapter four. Had I started it and just forgotten, or had I given up thanks to the author's style?

The former, thankfully. While Sawyer may well have been a fine teacher-- and this book does present that side of him a number of times-- his prose is often dry as week-old bread. If you can get past the insomnia factor, however, his methods of explaining math were even able to help me (who failed calculus 101 twice) understand the uses of integrals and derivatives. Rather than trying to explain mathematics in a conventional manner, Sawyer attacks the problem for those of us who never grasped these things in class by taking what was then (and still is, to an extent) a revolutionary approach to explaining maths: tell the student what the problems will be used for, and offer concrete examples, BEFORE explaining the mechanics of the thing. It's beautiful. Too bad more math teachers haven't read it. They probably couldn't get past the prose. ***

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, I tend to love all sorts of books about math, so I can't speak to whether or not this one would appeal to those who do not share that interest of mine. Secondly, I have mixed feelings about this book which come from the fact that it was written quite a while ago (1943) and using the British variety of English.

On one hand, these were impediments to me as the world has changed enough to feel like a very different place today (e.g. sliderules, computers, ...) so some of the practical examples and analogies were less helpful then they presumably once were, and the words used to explain them were stylistically unusual to me so that I often had to reread sentences to understand them properly.

However, I also found that this book still provided me with some wonderful insights that I'd never found elsewhere. In particular, I am grateful for the suggestion of thinking of 'i' first not as a number but as an operator and then seeing that operators work a lot like numbers. Next time I am attempting to help someone learn about complex numbers I am going to keep this in mind.

[J.B. B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is about realizing math (at least on the applied level) is a human language, from our experiences, and is used via abstraction. My friend and teacher Kareem told me to read to help me get back into thinking and using Math as a language, and to help me work out financial problems in grad school using math i may not yet understand.

[Vincent Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't have a lot to say about Mathematician's Delight other than this: If you or someone you know happen to be curious about math but have been afraid to explore it, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Mathematician's Delight as a starting point! W.W. Sawyer KNOWS how to teach and demonstrates it throughout this thoughtful and helpful little book. Would that he could update it for 2008 and beyond...

[Niloy Mitra · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good book for high school students? Nice writing style. The book started off great, but then sort of wandered off a bit in the later half.

[Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I don't give 5 stars is because it this is not a book aimed for me. I always enjoy Sawyer's books, but this is aimed at an audience without mathematical sophistication, and so I found it less enlightening than his other books. While I like seeing how Sawyer explains concepts from arithmetic to calculus to imaginary numbers, all of the material is old news to me (though his explanation of complex numbers was different than most approaches I have seen).

I would still highly recommend it if you feel weak in mathematics and would like to see how to improve. Sawyer has a very unique way of teaching, and he includes great examples and exercises (exercises that include more than mindless training, but experimentation in the "real" world). This is also the reason I feel I cannot award the full 5 stars. I do not know how effective this will be toward this target audience since I already know the material so well.

[Harry Harman]

Everyone knows that it is easy to do a puzzle if someone has told you the answer. That is simply a test of memory. You can claim to be a mathe matician if, and only if, you feel that you will be able to solve a puzzle that neither you, nor anyone else, has studied before. That is the test of reasoning.

Children imagine kings wearing crowns; in real life, the odds are that a king wears a military cap or a bowler hat. Before the first locomotives were made, people refused to believe they would work. It was thought that the wheels would slip, and the train would remain motionless. A certain Mr Blenkinsop went so far as to invent a locomotive with spiked wheels to overcome this purely imaginary difficulty.

If anyone in the year 1700 had prophesied what the world would be like today, he would surely have been considered mad.

People often go about with a fog of small diffi culties in their heads

[Paulo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The main aim of this book is not to explain how problems are solved, but it is to show what the problems of mathematics are. It is a right purpose for a book like this, but I didn't like it because I found the book quite outdated.

Sawyer shows some maths which are currently useless, such as how to work a slide-rule or tables for sines and cosines. Besides, many of the mathematical concepts and ideas he deals with are treated nowadays in secondary school, and they are widely known, so I think they don't contribute too much to bring mathematics closer to public. The book simply doesn't seem appropriate even for a high school student in her last years.

[Herman · Rating 2 out of 5]

First published in 1943, this book is now slightly outdated. The use of imperial units and references to slide rules made it a bit hard for me to digest as a modern reader. The author also waxes philosophical quite a lot, and it seems more aimed at teachers of mathematics. Nevertheless, the information is still valid and the writing is quite engaging. Not a bad way to refresh some of your high school mathematics and find some new interesting problems to explore.

[Tom Sheffield · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I read in High School, at that time thinking of a career in mathematics. I majored in Mathematics in a Liberal Arts college, and still enjoy reading about mathematics, although I decided against teaching mathematics and pursued a different career path.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although it is light years behind the spectacular fusion of mathematics with all the sciences since it was written.

[Matthew Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong start to this booklet piqued my interest, however I feel it began to flag midway through due to the terse and, at times, labourious writing style - I struggled to finish the last few chapters. However, overall it is a decent read and one I would recommend to those students still in secondary (high) school education.

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the recommendation of Paul Grahams

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting approach , though did not think last chapter was necessary

[Franziska Self Fisken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this circa 2012. Truly delightful. Love the way he starts off with a problem, and helps you solve it yourself!

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little book that clearly explains the 'why' behind Maths that many teachers (at least mine) seem to skip. Each chapter uses real world examples to illustrate the purpose of the mathematics that can describe it. Arithmetic, geometry, algebra, calculus and trigonometry are all covered. Successive chapters often build on what has gone before, so by the end a lot of the detailed calculus and trig gets quite tricky. But I was only reading it as a kind of reminder of some fundamentals so began to skip pages towards the end as I doubt I will ever need to design a tunnel or an electric motor. But if in the unlikely event, I would turn first to this book perhaps.

My book is an old Pelican 1944 reprint of the original published in 1943, hence there are lots of military and war references that give the book a real sense of time.

[Liam Porter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over a period of 6 months, little at a time, turning the ideas over in my brain like the author suggested. It explains things clearly but not redundantly. I learned a lot, and always felt like I was being guided by someone who understood what I needed at a beginner´s level.

[Gayathri Jayaraman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely. All time favorite. Will read it again and again and again....What are refreshing perspective of many things I have learnt long time ago , that too the wrong way :)

[Glenside Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author discusses what math is and how it should be taught properly. He also breaks down major topics in math and gives problems that require math thinking and understanding.