Alex’s Adventures in Numberland

June 15, 2010
6 min read

By: Cindy Scott

Math is often called the universal language, and in his new math travelogue, author Alex Bellos takes readers on a journey not only through realms of numerical thought and theory, but around the world as well. His book, Here’s Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math, is available for the first time in the U.S. today. It is already a bestseller in the U.K., under the title Alex’s Adventures in Numberland.

Bellos is an engaging and down-to-earth guide in this thought-provoking trip through the history of math’s cross-cultural development and application. His globe-trekking has unearthed fascinating factoids concerning numbers, calculations, and how different groups of people use them. He reveals, for example, that the Munduruku people of the Amazon can only count to five, and there is no word for “million” in India.

Bellos is a former Guardian reporter who studied math and philosophy at Oxford University. He is pictured above among the main promoters of Vedic mathematics at the Shankaracharya of Puri’s temple in Puri, Orissa, India.

Vedic mathematics is a controversial, alternative way of performing calculations, and the theory behind it is drawn from Sanskrit religious texts. Bellos discusses this and the many other ways that math and culture often intertwine in his new book, and I asked the British author to tell us more about math through a global lens.

You traveled the world to investigate how math is perceived and put to use in a variety of cultural contexts. Could you give us a brief tally of the places you visited while writing this book?

I traveled near and far! I spent two weeks in Japan, visiting Tokyo, Osaka and Inuyama, a quiet town home to the world’s most numerate chimpanzees. I crossed India, from Bombay to Puri, on the Bay of Bengal, to meet a math guru. I attended the Mental Calculation World Cup in Germany and visited NeuroSpin, the world’s top neuroscience research center near Paris, France. In two trips to the U.S., I visited New York, Atlanta, St. Louis, Scottsdale, Reno, Newport Beach and Norman, Oklahoma. And I spent lots of time in the British Library, in London, where I live.

Why did you fashion your journey through the history of math into a geographical journey?

I used to be a foreign correspondent, and so I’m used to writing geographical journeys. For five years I was the South America correspondent for the (London) Guardian, based in Rio de Janeiro. My approach to writing about a subject is to fly there to see the subject firsthand. I wanted to bring a sense of immediacy and relevance to talking about math, and this seemed like the most interesting and fun way to do it. My book is rather like a travelogue through the world of mathematics. And I found this world as exciting and exotic as the countries I had reported on as a foreign correspondent.

Were you ever surprised by how much, or how little, math pervaded a society you encountered?

Since math is where it all begins, I was never surprised by how deep math runs in any society. But what fascinated me–and surprised me too–was how differently math is approached in different cultures. This is counter-intuitive, since we assume that since 1 + 1 is always 2, math is somehow universal. But math culture is delightfully varied. In Japan, for example, children still learn the abacus. For fun! A million children attend abacus school every year there, and many take part in competitions–sort of like math equivalents of spelling bees.

Many people (myself included) find higher levels of math exceptionally vexing, if not incomprehensible. What advice would you offer arithmophobes to help them look at the subject in a new light?

First I’d have you diagnosed for dyscalculia. This is the numbers equivalent of dyslexia, and it affects around 5 percent of the population, even though it is hardly known about. People with this condition have an inability to properly understand numbers. If you are dyscalculic, no wonder you are scared of math. There are strategies now to help dyscalculics deal with the numbers in everyday life.

Second, I would show you that there is beauty and joy in incredibly simple math. We don’t need to go to the high slopes–the foothills contain many treasures. Even something as well-known as the Pythagorean Theorem reveals wonderful patterns.

Third, I’d talk to you about the tribes in the Amazon that can only count to five…I’m sure that would pique your interest. Lots of fascinating research is being done that shatters conventional views of why and how humans think of numbers.

After examining the diverse ways that different cultures conceptualize numbers and calculations (or don’t, as the case may be), do you agree or disagree with the notion that math is a “universal language” of sorts?

There are many levels to answer this question. On a very practical level, numbers are the universal language. The “Arabic” numerals we use–0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9–are used by every non hunter-gatherer society (with a few exceptions–most notably parts of the Arab world). A Japanese person, a Turk and a Bolivian will not be able to understand each other when they talk, but all will be able to write down, say, their dates of birth and be understood.  On a more abstract level, math is not just a universal language but also a language of universals. Since the truths of math–unlike the truths of any other subject, including science–are true for eternity. That’s why Pythagoras and Euclid are the oldest names we study at school.

For more about Alex or to purchase his book, visit AlexBellos.com.

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