Secret Life of Math Discover How (And Why) Numbers Have Survived From The Cave Dwellers To Us!

Kids and adults will see how varied peoples developed systems to problem solve in their daily life: the farmer's need to know how far he needs to walk to bring water to his crop (measuring distance) or how many days he has until the weather changes (the calendar); the trader's need to know how to barter and measure worth (symbols, place value, calculations); the tax collector's need to find a way to insure that his taxes are properly paid (tallying and tally sticks, half of which was called the "stock"); observations of nature and a need to imitate and learn (patterns, shapes, symmetry, tessellations, geometry, computer binary code). Kids can make an abacus (Chinese), tally sticks (British), a quipu (Inca), read hieroglyphics, write on papyrus, measure distance and time Olympic-style, and more.McCallum, Ann is the author of 'Secret Life of Math Discover How (And Why) Numbers Have Survived From The Cave Dwellers To Us!' with ISBN 9780824967796 and ISBN 0824967798.