Paul Lockhart is the author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician’s Lament. After a career as a research mathematician at Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he spent two decades teaching algebra at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn.

Today’s world is more dependent on numbers than at any time in human history, yet with the ready availability of cheap, reliable devices that handle computation, we have never had less need to master arithmetic. Our newfound freedom from the chore of hand computation makes it both possible and, Paul Lockhart argues in this wonderful new book, desirable to step back and reflect on the entire development of arithmetic over several millennia. What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind’s most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story.

Paul Lockhart is the author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician’s Lament. After a career as a research mathematician at Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he spent two decades teaching algebra at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn.

Today’s world is more dependent on numbers than at any time in human history, yet with the ready availability of cheap, reliable devices that handle computation, we have never had less need to master arithmetic. Our newfound freedom from the chore of hand computation makes it both possible and, Paul Lockhart argues in this wonderful new book, desirable to step back and reflect on the entire development of arithmetic over several millennia. What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind’s most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story.

Paul Lockhart is the author of Arithmetic, Measurement, and A Mathematician’s Lament. After a career as a research mathematician at Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he spent two decades teaching algebra at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn.

Today’s world is more dependent on numbers than at any time in human history, yet with the ready availability of cheap, reliable devices that handle computation, we have never had less need to master arithmetic. Our newfound freedom from the chore of hand computation makes it both possible and, Paul Lockhart argues in this wonderful new book, desirable to step back and reflect on the entire development of arithmetic over several millennia. What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind’s most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story.