Audiobook · read by volunteers
Philosophy and Fun of Algebra
Mary Everest Boole (1832–1916)
Read by Patricia Oakley · 18 chapters · 1 h 41
About the book
Mary Everest Boole believed that algebra was not a chore but a way of thinking, and she wrote this short book to prove it to children. There are no stern rules here. Instead she begins with the everyday problems that arithmetic cannot quite solve, shows how to make a clever guess and then correct it, and gradually introduces the habits of mind that mathematicians prize. Along the way she speaks about doubt, about partial answers and about the honest confession of what we do not yet know. Her chapters wander from simple sums to puzzles with several unknowns, to Macbeth’s mistake, to the square root of minus one and the idea of infinity. Warm, a little eccentric and always encouraging, the book is a delight for curious young listeners and for adults who once decided that mathematics was not for them. It might change your mind.
Introduction
Mary Everest Boole, who lived from 1832 to 1916, was born Mary Everest in England and spent her early years in France. She married the mathematician George Boole and later wrote several works on teaching, and on the teaching of mathematics in particular. Philosophy and Fun of Algebra, published in 1909, is among the shortest and most playful of them. It was written to be read by children, and it introduces both algebra and logic in a conversational manner.
Boole uses the word algebra broadly. For her it is a method of solving problems by honest confession of what is not yet known, and she illustrates it with stories and anecdotes, often drawn from the Bible. The eighteen chapters in this recording begin with the passage from arithmetic to algebra and go on to the making of algebras, simultaneous problems, partial solutions and the elements of complexity; later chapters turn to Jacob’s Ladder, the square root of minus one and infinity, and an appendix closes the book. The reading lasts a little under two hours.
The book has the charm of its period and of its author’s distinctive character. Boole was a thinker who liked to challenge the fixed habits of classrooms, and the text invites the reader to think for themselves instead of memorising procedures. Some of her ideas will strike a modern teacher as old-fashioned, others as surprisingly fresh.
LibriVox volunteers recorded this edition so that it could be enjoyed freely. It makes a fine listen for a child with a curious streak, for a parent who wants to rediscover why mathematics can be fun, and for anyone who has ever felt that an equation was a locked door.
Public domain
Mary Everest Boole died in 1916: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text