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3/3/09 is Square Root Day, by Julie Schaeffer

Tue, 03/03/2009

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If you are a math lover then you might have already realized that today is a special day. Today is 3/3/09, otherwise recognized by the dorky as Square Root Day. Of course, the last Square Root Day occured on 2/2/04 and the next will not be until 4/4/16 so let's celebrate now while we can. For more info on the day, check out CNET news.

To get the party started, here are some math-licious books:

	The Strunk & White of statistics team up to help the average person navigate the numbers in the news. Drawing on their hugely popular BBC Radio 4 show More or Less,, journalist Michael Blastland and internationally known economist Andrew Dilnot delight, amuse, and convert American mathphobes by showing how our everyday experiences make sense of numbers. The radical premise of The Numbers Game is to show how much we already know, and give practical ways to use our knowledge to become cannier consumers of the media. In each concise chapter, the authors take on a different theme-such as size, chance, averages, targets, risk, measurement, and data-and present it as a memorable and entertaining story. If you've ever wondered what "average" really means, whether the scare stories about cancer risk should convince you to change your behavior, or whether a story you read in the paper is biased (and how), you need this book. Blastland and Dilnot show how to survive and thrive on the torrent of numbers that pours through everyday life. It's the essential guide to every cause you love or hate, and every issue you follow, in the language everyone uses.
	From a well-known actress and math genius-a groundbreaking guide to mathematics for middle school girls, their parents, and educators As the math education crisis in this country continues to make headlines, research continues to prove that it is in middle school when math scores begin to drop-especially for girls-in large part due to the relentless social conditioning that tells girls they "can't do" math, and that math is "uncool." Young girls today need strong female role models to embrace the idea that it's okay to be smart-in fact, it's sexy to be smart! It's Danica McKellar's mission to be this role model, and demonstrate on a large scale that math doesn't suck. In this fun and accessible guide, McKellar-dubbed a "math superstar" by The New York Times-gives girls and their parents the tools they need to master the math concepts that confuse middle-schoolers most, including fractions, percentages, pre-algebra, and more. The book features hip, real-world examples, step-by-step instruction, and engaging stories of Danica's own childhood struggles in math (and stardom). In addition, borrowing from the style of today's teen magazines, it even includes a Math Horoscope section, Math Personality Quizzes, and Real-Life Testimonials-ultimately revealing why math is easier and cooler than readers think.
	*From the author of the runaway bestseller Math Doesn't Suck, the next step in the math curriculum-- pre-Algebra. Last year, actress and math genius Danica McKellar made waves nationwide, challenging the "math nerd" stereotype-and giving girls the tools to ace tests and homework in her unique just-us-girls style. Now, in Kiss My Math*, McKellar empowers a new crop of girls-7th to 9th graders-taking on the next level of mathematics: pre-Algebra.
	Number is an eloquent, accessible tour de force that reveals how the concept of number evolved from prehistoric times through the twentieth century. Tobias Dantzig shows that the development of math-from the invention of counting to the discovery of infinity-is a profoundly human story that progressed by "trying and erring, by groping and stumbling." He shows how commerce, war, and religion led to advances in math, and he recounts the stories of individuals whose breakthroughs expanded the concept of number and created the mathematics that we know today.
	*The companion to the hit CBS crime series Numb3rs* presents the fascinating way mathematics is used to fight real-life crime** Using the popular CBS prime-time TV crime series Numb3rs as a springboard, Keith Devlin (known to millions of NPR listeners as "the Math Guy" on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon) and Gary Lorden (the principal math advisor to Numb3rs) explain real-life mathematical techniques used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to catch and convict criminals. From forensics to counterterrorism, the Riemann hypothesis to image enhancement, solving murders to beating casinos, Devlin and Lorden present compelling cases that illustrate how advanced mathematics can be used in state-of-the-art criminal investigations.
	"A math book that reads like a mystery novel." -The Christian Science Monitor In 1859, Bernhard Riemann, a little-known thirty-two year old mathematician, made a hypothesis while presenting a paper to the Berlin Academy titled "On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity." Today, after 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, the Riemann Hyphothesis remains unsolved, with a one-million-dollar prize earmarked for the first person to conquer it. Alternating passages of extraordinarily lucid mathematical exposition with chapters of elegantly composed biography and history, Prime Obsession is a fascinating and fluent account of an epic mathematical mystery that continues to challenge and excite the world.
	Covering all branches of pure and applied mathematics, including algebra, geometry, mechanics, and statistics, The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics is invaluable for students at the high school or university level. It is also a useful and versatile source book for economists, business people, engineers, technicians, scientists of all kinds, and anyone else who uses mathematics in the course of daily work.