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Zero to Lazy Eight: The Romance Numbers
From Simon & Schuster, Zero to Lazy Eight is Alexander Humez's exploration into the romance of numbers fit with free-forming essays related to folklore, idioms, and mathematical diversions.
A collection of essays blending elements of linguistics and mathematics provides an educational glimpse into the social history and culture of common phrases and colloquial expressions.
A collection of essays blending elements of linguistics and mathematics provides an educational glimpse into the social history and culture of common phrases and colloquial expressions.
- GenresMathematics
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 11, 2021
The Humez brothers wrote two of my favorite books on language, Alpha to Omega, about the letters of the Greek alphabet, and ABC Et Cetera, about the Roman letters. In these books they look at the histories of the letters, dashing from one topic to another in a sometimes madcap manner. The style is not to everyone’s taste, but I loved it: so much miscellany, so many things that made me think, “So that’s where it came from.”
In this book they do the same with numbers, co-authoring with Joseph Maguire. The book is part math, part social history, and part investigation into where certain number phrases come from. They even manage to slip in some Latin and Greek; for instance, the word west is cognate with Latin vesper, meaning evening. Occident and orient? Occidens meant “falling down,” as in the direction of the sun setting, and Orient comes from the deponent verb oriri, ‘to rise.’
Along the way we learn about Fibonacci numbers, and not just what they are, but where they came from and the kinds of problems they can be used to solve, part of a larger discussion on fractions and integer sequences. And who would have guessed that our phrase “to be at sixes and sevens” has such a colorful history? Pope Sixtus V confirmed the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I, and his name was turned into a pun, “Pope Sisesinke,” using sink in its old meaning of cesspool. As time went on and memories faded, the pope’s name got merged with a similar sounding gambling phrase, “to set on sink and sice” (to bet on five or six) which morphed into sixes and sevens, “presumably on something like the idea that more is better: If x is good, then (x+1) must be even spiffier.” (p. 95)
There are also discussions of things that I had never heard of before, and had to turn to the internet for help, such as the aliquot sequence (from Latin meaning few or not many) which “is a sequence of positive integers in which each term is the sum of the proper divisors of the previous term. If the sequence reaches the number 1, it ends, since the sum of the proper divisors of 1 is 0.” (from the Wikipedia entry).
There are discussions of some things that I had heard of sometime in the past but did not know what they did or why they are important, such as abundant numbers, casting out nines, and Pascal’s triangle. There is even a good discussion of the Monty Hall problem, and the answer is yes, you should switch your choice if given the opportunity.
This is a fun book, full of gee-whiz moments. I took to thinking of them as bedtime stories for grown-ups, and would read a few pages each night before turning in. The book is interesting and informative, especially if you aspire to be the trivia champion of your block, although if I had to choose, I would recommend Alpha to Omega as the Humez book to start with.
In this book they do the same with numbers, co-authoring with Joseph Maguire. The book is part math, part social history, and part investigation into where certain number phrases come from. They even manage to slip in some Latin and Greek; for instance, the word west is cognate with Latin vesper, meaning evening. Occident and orient? Occidens meant “falling down,” as in the direction of the sun setting, and Orient comes from the deponent verb oriri, ‘to rise.’
Along the way we learn about Fibonacci numbers, and not just what they are, but where they came from and the kinds of problems they can be used to solve, part of a larger discussion on fractions and integer sequences. And who would have guessed that our phrase “to be at sixes and sevens” has such a colorful history? Pope Sixtus V confirmed the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I, and his name was turned into a pun, “Pope Sisesinke,” using sink in its old meaning of cesspool. As time went on and memories faded, the pope’s name got merged with a similar sounding gambling phrase, “to set on sink and sice” (to bet on five or six) which morphed into sixes and sevens, “presumably on something like the idea that more is better: If x is good, then (x+1) must be even spiffier.” (p. 95)
There are also discussions of things that I had never heard of before, and had to turn to the internet for help, such as the aliquot sequence (from Latin meaning few or not many) which “is a sequence of positive integers in which each term is the sum of the proper divisors of the previous term. If the sequence reaches the number 1, it ends, since the sum of the proper divisors of 1 is 0.” (from the Wikipedia entry).
There are discussions of some things that I had heard of sometime in the past but did not know what they did or why they are important, such as abundant numbers, casting out nines, and Pascal’s triangle. There is even a good discussion of the Monty Hall problem, and the answer is yes, you should switch your choice if given the opportunity.
This is a fun book, full of gee-whiz moments. I took to thinking of them as bedtime stories for grown-ups, and would read a few pages each night before turning in. The book is interesting and informative, especially if you aspire to be the trivia champion of your block, although if I had to choose, I would recommend Alpha to Omega as the Humez book to start with.
March 6, 2011
I like this book a lot! Good science writing that holds your interest
Library book.
Library book.
November 14, 2008
I like books about numbers. I like learning about origins of language. And, for the most part, I liked this book. You cannot read this expecting some overlying theme to it all, or even a nice neat conclusions section to wrap everything up. Each chapter is its own entity and is tenuously connected to a single number (zero through thirteen, plus an additional chapter on infinity). However, the narrative is tangential and digresses often into adjacent but not immediately applicable topics. For instance, chapter 5 is spent largely discussing the measurement of time. Is it an interesting collection of random information? No doubt. However, it's nothing more than that. It is less a book than a collection of well-informed essays bordering on stream of consciousness. I had hoped for more explanation of common number-themed phrases, but I did not want for neat little facts on math and linguistics. If you're just looking for some light nonfiction, this is a nice diversion.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews