Burn Math Class

And Reinvent Mathematics for Yourself

Contributors

By Jason Wilkes

Formats and Prices

Price

$20.99

Price

$26.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. ebook $20.99 $26.99 CAD
  2. Hardcover $35.00 $44.00 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around March 22, 2016. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

A manifesto for a mathematical revolution

Forget everything you’ve been taught about math. In Burn Math Class, Jason Wilkes takes the traditional approach to how we learn math — with its unwelcoming textbooks, unexplained rules, and authoritarian assertions-and sets it on fire.

Focusing on how mathematics is created rather than on mathematical facts, Wilkes teaches the subject in a way that requires no memorization and no prior knowledge beyond addition and multiplication. From these simple foundations, Burn Math Class shows how mathematics can be (re)invented from scratch without preexisting textbooks and courses. We can discover math on our own through experimentation and failure, without appealing to any outside authority. When math is created free from arcane notations and pretentious jargon that hide the simplicity of mathematical concepts, it can be understood organically — and it becomes fun!

Following this unconventional approach, Burn Math Class leads the reader from the basics of elementary arithmetic to various “advanced” topics, such as time-dilation in special relativity, Taylor series, and calculus in infinite-dimensional spaces. Along the way, Wilkes argues that orthodox mathematics education has been teaching the subject backward: calculus belongs before many of its so-called prerequisites, and those prerequisites cannot be fully understood without calculus.

Like the smartest, craziest teacher you’ve ever had, Wilkes guides you on an adventure in mathematical creation that will radically change the way you think about math. Revealing the beauty and simplicity of this timeless subject, Burn Math Class turns everything that seems difficult about mathematics upside down and sideways until you understand just how easy math can be.
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Genre:

On Sale
Mar 22, 2016
Page Count
400 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465073818

Jason Wilkes

About the Author

Jason Wilkes holds an MS in mathematical physics and an MA in psychology. He is currently a graduate student in evolutionary psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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