Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey

By Paul C. Pasles

Book Overview

Few American lives have been as celebrated--or as closely scrutinized--as that of Benjamin Franklin. Yet until now Franklin's biographers have downplayed his interest in mathematics, at best... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691129568
• ISBN13: 9780691129563
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.4" x 0.9" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

An Excellent Geeky Read

This book explains how Franklin came to some of his conclusions within the realms of math and physics, with plenty of references, while remaining extremely entertaining. It also shows a bit of a mathematical basis for Franklin's daily decision making activities. Engaging, with some math puzzles to try on your own, and inspirational. I got this book from my local library, but loved it so much I had to go buy my own copy. I would recommend downloading Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography on [...](free) in addition to reading this book, if you want to go through a whole Benjamin Franlin obsession phase.

Ben"s Genius

Benjamin Franklin's Numbers is very facinating, I never knew he more than a founding father. This is a great book for anyone who loves numbers and has a math background, something you won't learn in school.

An original and quick read

Most geeks admire Ben Franklin, and not only for patriotic reasons. He was a brilliant, vibrant mind who made contributions to several fields. There isn't a lack of biographies about the man. Or even good ones at that. What this short (and sweet) book does though, is to cover Franklin as a mathematician, a side of the genius that is often hidden or disputed. This hardcover focuses on Magic Squares and Franklin's contribution to this field, even though he wrongly considered them as enjoyable, but useless in practice. Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey is filled with mathematical puzzles and will be a pleasure to read for those who can appreciate small challenges and the historical importance of Pasles' research.

Franklin's Genius on the Square

If I could sit down with anyone from the past, my choice would be easy: Benjamin Franklin. Franklin would have been easy to talk to, even if he might have been a little pedantic. But he was funny, and sociable, and what a résumé he has: diplomat, printer, businessman, scientist, inventor, musician, expert chess player, essayist, autobiographer. It is hard to think of any aspect of this myriad-minded man that has not been covered by previous biographers, but they have always tended to leave out his discoveries in mathematics. Paul C. Pasles, an associate professor of mathematical sciences, has now paid tribute to those discoveries, and has uncovered more of them than any previous biographer has known. _Benjamin Franklin's Numbers: An Unsung Mathematical Odyssey_ will be a delight for Franklin fans like me, and it will provide those who are interested in number puzzles, simple to complex, with much to play with. Pasles has included puzzles in every chapter, and, don't worry, has put all the answers and explanations in an appendix. Franklin's mathematical achievements are chiefly his discoveries in magic squares, and readers will come away not only with an appreciation of his mathematical cleverness, but of the beauty of the remarkable objects he discovered. Franklin didn't do well in math at his school, but became adept at using numbers for his printing business, and had to be able to calculate for some of the tables in his famous almanacs. He used numbers for predictions of population statistics, but the magic square was his mathematical delight. A magic square is an arrangement of numbers in a square grid, generally starting from one and using each successive number in its box on the grid, so that the rows, columns, diagonals, and other patterns add up to the same sum. Franklin did his initial work on the squares around 1736, when he was bored by debates in the Pennsylvania Assembly, for which he was clerk. His attitude expressed in a letter sounds just like the one he had toward all his endeavors: "Not being content with these [regular properties of magic squares], which I looked on as common and easy things, I had imposed on myself more difficult tasks, and succeeded in making other magic squares, with a variety of properties, and much more curious." There are many of his eight-by-eight squares given here, some with elaborate keys; one shows that not only the rows and bent diagonals sum up properly to 260, but so do bent diagonals parallel to the corner-to-corner version, as do the four corner squares added to the four central squares, as do "knight's move" diagonals; and any 2-by-2 inner block of cells adds up to half of 260. Then there are the 16-by-16 monsters. And then there are the magic circles he invented, with radii and concentric circles adding up to a specific number, as do what Franklin called the "excentric" circles spiraling around the circular pattern. Franklin knew that some of his magic square inventions were