Arithmetic for Entertainment

by Yakov Perelman, Yakov Perelman

This book is different from other books of similar content, not in term of the material it contains but in term of the way this material is processed and presented. It does not only study the arithmetic topics studied in school, but also analyzes how these ones can be used in various other areas and in solving real life problems. Additionally, it does not try to turn enjoyable and entertaining problems into tedious tasks that are often fruitless for serious work. It avoids difficult problems and selects only the material that is accessible for the majority of the readers.

Genres: Mathematics, Science

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Yakov Isidorovich Perelman (Russian: Яков Исидорович Перельман; December 4, 1882 – March 16, 1942) was a Russian and Soviet science writer and author of many popular science books, including Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun (both translated from Russian into English).

Reviews

[Jose Gaona · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Aritmética Recreativa" hará las delicias de todos aquellos que disfruten de los juegos de lógica, pasatiempos mentales, acertijos, trucos y adivinanzas. La sencillez del texto lo hace accesible a todos los públicos y en ningún momento la dificultad de las ideas planteadas supone un obstáculo para el profano. A pesar de contar con algún que otro capítulo que raya a un nivel ostensiblemente más bajo que el del resto del libro (especialmente a medida que nos acercamos al final), el libro se devora con una facilidad pasmosa y los capítulos dedicados al sistema decimal y a los sistemas no-decimales son oro puro. El apéndice de Jorge Castro Briones, añadido a la edición digital, complementa perfectamente el texto principal añadiendo notas de profundidad a lo ya expuesto. En definitiva, "Aritmética Recreativa" no es perfecto, pero aún así es una lectura muy, muy recomendable.

Enlace al resto de la reseña.

[Manuel Alfonseca]

I won't give this book any number of stars because the copy I have is in a very bad state and any qualification would be negatively affected by that, which would be unfair.
Anyway, I want to point out something that probably is not to be blamed on the author (Yakov Perelman) because he was simply transcribing the official position of the Stalinist government. In his chapter about Dewey's decimal book classification system, he enunciates the 10 classes in the top level. Class number 2 appears thus in the list:
2. History of religion and anti-religious literature.
This title surprised me, as it seems unnecessary detailed. For instance, class number 1 is just Philosophy. Class number 8 is Literature. So I consulted a Western encyclopaedia and found out that class number 2 is in fact the following:
2. Religion.
So this means that in Soviet Russia (at least in Yakov Perelman's time) Dewey's decimal classification had been censored to eliminate all the religious books, leaving in that section just books on history and against religion. Apparently Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, and so many others never existed, or never wrote books (unless their books were reclassified as Literature or Philosophy, I haven't looked at it).
The Catholic Church has been accused by atheists of burning books or putting them in the index of forbidden books, as a form of censorship. I think denying the existence of the books, as the atheistic government of the Soviet Union seems to have done, is a worse form of censorship.