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Arithmetic Refresher
The farther we get from our grade school days, the easier it is to forget those operations and nuances of arithmetical computation that keep recurring in our daily lives: interest and discount problems, time-payment calculations, tax problems, and so on.
This handy book is designed to streamline your methods and resharpen your calculation skills for a variety of situations. Starting with the most elementary operations, the book goes on to cover all basic topics and processes of arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentage, interest, ratio and proportion, denominate numbers, averages, etc. The text continues into other useful matters, such as powers and roots, logarithms, positive and negative numbers, harmonic progression, and introductory concepts of algebra.
Entirely practical in approach and using an easy-to-follow question and answer style, this book covers a wide range of common knotty areas: filling and emptying receptacles, scales for models and maps, business and financial calculations (partial payment problems, compound interest, bank and sales discount, profit and loss problems, etc.), angle measurement, mixtures and solutions, graph and chart problems, and the like.
The discussion contains numerous alternate and short-cut methods, such as quick ways to figure compound interest; to square a number from 1 to 100; to divide by 5, 25, 125, 99, etc.; to multiply two 2-digit numbers having the same figure in the tens place; and many more. These valuable tips, together with the huge fund of exercise problems (a total of 809, half of them answered in an appendix), help you to increase your computational proficiency and speed, and make this an extremely useful volume to have on your shelf at home or at work. Anyone who has to do any figuring at all -- housewife, merchant, student -- will profit from this refresher. Parents will find it an excellent source of material for helping children in school work.
This handy book is designed to streamline your methods and resharpen your calculation skills for a variety of situations. Starting with the most elementary operations, the book goes on to cover all basic topics and processes of arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percentage, interest, ratio and proportion, denominate numbers, averages, etc. The text continues into other useful matters, such as powers and roots, logarithms, positive and negative numbers, harmonic progression, and introductory concepts of algebra.
Entirely practical in approach and using an easy-to-follow question and answer style, this book covers a wide range of common knotty areas: filling and emptying receptacles, scales for models and maps, business and financial calculations (partial payment problems, compound interest, bank and sales discount, profit and loss problems, etc.), angle measurement, mixtures and solutions, graph and chart problems, and the like.
The discussion contains numerous alternate and short-cut methods, such as quick ways to figure compound interest; to square a number from 1 to 100; to divide by 5, 25, 125, 99, etc.; to multiply two 2-digit numbers having the same figure in the tens place; and many more. These valuable tips, together with the huge fund of exercise problems (a total of 809, half of them answered in an appendix), help you to increase your computational proficiency and speed, and make this an extremely useful volume to have on your shelf at home or at work. Anyone who has to do any figuring at all -- housewife, merchant, student -- will profit from this refresher. Parents will find it an excellent source of material for helping children in school work.
- GenresMathematicsReference
452 pages, Unknown Binding
First published June 1, 1964
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October 26, 2019
When I was a child, arithmetic was taught to me in stages. For those who don’t know arithmetic is basic mathematics. It involves actual numbers rather than variables and focuses on the six main manipulations that can be done. So I had finished learning arithmetic proper around fifth grade; in the United States, fifth grade is what a child goes through from the ages of 10 to 11.
In any case, it has been over twenty years since I finished learning arithmetic in a formal setting. Clearly, a refresher course would aid me quite a bit. That is where Arithmetic Refresher comes in. Written by A. A. Klaf back in the 1950s, this book covers the six basic manipulations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, involution, and evolution. Now those last two were new terms to me, but I recognize the processes as using exponents.
Given that this book was written in the 1950s I assumed that it would have a number of fact-checks included that would aid calculation. The Slide Rule existed, but I have never used one. This is because in 1970 the first portable calculator was invented by Texas Instruments. Now I won’t get into the history of calculators, but that made it so that a lot of calculations and methods were lost. Anyway, back to what I was saying, the book does contain methods to fact-check calculations. A lot of the methods and ideas are quite interesting.
Although the book does contain a lot of information and problems, there are some areas where the book is lacking. I thought the book would contain the method to extract roots of any type, but it didn’t. On the other hand, the book does contain an examination of how to use continued fractions, which is something I did not know how to do. In any case, the book does show how to take square roots and cube roots, so I suppose that by combining the two methods you could get any root you want.
So this book is very well done. The other book by Klaf that I have, the Calculus Refresher, is similar in style. I enjoyed reading this one and finding out techniques and ideas that I had completely forgotten or never learned in the first place. Now it is possible that my schooling glossed over extracting square and cube roots because I never had to use it, or it could be that I learned it and promptly forgot it. This is the unfortunate reality of my memory. I have no reason to remember the process used to find square roots if I have a graphing calculator. On the other hand, as a person that enjoys learning things, it is interesting to find out how that sort of calculation was carried out before the calculator was invented.
In any case, it has been over twenty years since I finished learning arithmetic in a formal setting. Clearly, a refresher course would aid me quite a bit. That is where Arithmetic Refresher comes in. Written by A. A. Klaf back in the 1950s, this book covers the six basic manipulations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, involution, and evolution. Now those last two were new terms to me, but I recognize the processes as using exponents.
Given that this book was written in the 1950s I assumed that it would have a number of fact-checks included that would aid calculation. The Slide Rule existed, but I have never used one. This is because in 1970 the first portable calculator was invented by Texas Instruments. Now I won’t get into the history of calculators, but that made it so that a lot of calculations and methods were lost. Anyway, back to what I was saying, the book does contain methods to fact-check calculations. A lot of the methods and ideas are quite interesting.
Although the book does contain a lot of information and problems, there are some areas where the book is lacking. I thought the book would contain the method to extract roots of any type, but it didn’t. On the other hand, the book does contain an examination of how to use continued fractions, which is something I did not know how to do. In any case, the book does show how to take square roots and cube roots, so I suppose that by combining the two methods you could get any root you want.
So this book is very well done. The other book by Klaf that I have, the Calculus Refresher, is similar in style. I enjoyed reading this one and finding out techniques and ideas that I had completely forgotten or never learned in the first place. Now it is possible that my schooling glossed over extracting square and cube roots because I never had to use it, or it could be that I learned it and promptly forgot it. This is the unfortunate reality of my memory. I have no reason to remember the process used to find square roots if I have a graphing calculator. On the other hand, as a person that enjoys learning things, it is interesting to find out how that sort of calculation was carried out before the calculator was invented.
Displaying 1 of 1 review