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Strength in Numbers: Discovering the Joy and Power of Mathematics in Everyday Life. Sherman Stein. 272 pp. John Wiley & Sons, 1996. $24.95.
Let's cut to the quick. Read this book. There is a plethora of this sort of book on the market now-books that attempt to explain mathematics from elementary school arithmetic through calculus and beyond. Many of them are shallow and perpetuate the many myths about mathematics that abound throughout the literature.
I immediately turned to the obligatory section on the golden ratio, expecting the sort of enthusiastic nonsense that characterizes all of these popular expositions. Much to my delight, the author was debunking the myths of the golden ratio! Surely you have heard of at least some of these-the golden ratio appears in the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the Parthenon, paintings, the UN building, the dimensions of the most beautiful rectangle, the human body and Virgil's Aeneid. Although most mathematicians know these to...