Tag: math

Book: Ben Orlin “Math with Bad Drawings”

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I fell in love with mathematics in the early years of school. I was very fortunate to have a math teacher who not only showed us how fascinating this subject could be but also greatly influenced me and many of my classmates in shaping who we became as individuals. He was truly a Teacher with a capital “T.”

In the fourth grade, I completed both the fourth and fifth-grade math courses (even though the official education system didn’t really support such an approach at the time), and I carried my love for mathematics all the way to university, eventually earning a degree as an officially certified “mathematician-systems programmer.” (Though I must admit that by the time I was in university, I realized I didn’t enjoy all areas of mathematics equally—but that’s a story for another time.)

It was probably this childhood passion that made me pay attention to a book titled “Math with Bad Drawings” when it randomly appeared in my feed. Or perhaps it was the description, which mentioned that not every student is lucky enough to have a teacher like Ben Orlin, who knows how to reveal the beauty of this subject in an accessible and engaging way. I was eager to compare the methods of this unfamiliar American author with the approaches that had such an impact on me.

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Vladimir Levshin: How to Make Children Fall in Love with Mathematics

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I recently started reading a book about mathematics written by a mathematician. The title and description intrigued me, but so far, as I’m just at the beginning, I’m not particularly impressed. This got me thinking—how do mathematicians become mathematicians? When does their love for the subject begin, and why?

I don’t consider myself a “true” mathematician, although my degree officially labels me as a “mathematician-system programmer.” However, I fell in love with mathematics back in my school years. Two factors played a significant role in this: my math teacher, who later became my homeroom teacher, and several books by the remarkable writer Vladimir Levshin.

Getting hold of Levshin’s books wasn’t easy, but they were available in libraries. I read all of his books I could find (around ten). His most famous work, in my opinion, is the trilogy about the Magister of Scattered Sciences. That trilogy itself, however, is part of a larger cycle centered around a character named Nolik (which means ‘a Small Zero’ in Russian).

The books are likely intended for students in grades 3–6 (this is my personal estimation based on childhood impressions). They are written in the style of a fairy tale adventure, comparable in tone to The Lost Time Fairy Tale or Old Man Hottabych. The key difference is that Levshin’s main magical characters are personified numbers, primarily Nolik, after whom the entire series is now named.

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