VOA标准英语2010年-Bringing the Beauty of Math to Life

Approaches to math differ around the world. In Japan, millions of children study the abacus¹ for fun after school.

For many people, math can be intimidating². But Alex Bellos finds it intriguing³.

The journalist has degrees in mathematics and philosophy from Oxford⁴ University. After 20 years as a reporter, Bellos decided⁵ to combine his profession and his degrees. He traveled around the world - and back in time - to uncover fascinating stories of mathematical achievements and to profile people whose lives are intertwined with numbers.

 Alex Bellos discovered that mathematics - which seems so absolute - is not the same everywhere around the globe.

"While two plus two is indeed four all over the world, the approach to math is so, so different," Bellos says. "I came from the U.K. where being good at math is seen as being uncool. This is not the case even in France. The French love their math. It's quite cool to be a mathematician⁶. Mathematicians⁷ in France are seen as great intellectuals. And being good at arithmetic in India is almost seen as a badge of national pride. In Japan, which is a culture most different from mine, a million children study the abacus for fun after school. Counting is seen as fun. It's quite fun to be able to calculate and do multiplication⁸ very, very quickly."

Courtesy Alex Bellos
In his new book, 'Here's Looking at Euclid,' Alex Bellos recounts his math adventures.

 Japan was one of the places Bellos visited on his year-long journey. There, he met the creator of the popular Sudoku puzzles and talked about the brain-teasing delights of mathematical games.

In a town near Tokyo, he spent time with a guru of origami, the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. Origami, Bellos says, is one of the hottest areas of mathematical work today.

"It turns out that origami is a brilliant way to understand geometry," he says. "And if you start to think about paper folding, there are lots of things you can't do with the methods that have been taught in schools really since the Greeks. For instance, trisection of an angle. Just using a compass and straight-edge, you cannot construct an angle which is a third of another angle, but you can do that with origami. So it's quite interesting to think that origami in Japan, it may be a cultural thing for children, but now people study origami at the highest level in academia."

While in Japan, Bellos also met a math whiz who is not human.

"I met the world's most numeric chimpanzee, he says. "And it's fascinating just to see that chimpanzees can learn to count."

'Here's Looking at Euclid,' by Alex Bellos

Bellos recounts his adventures in a new book, "Here's Looking at Euclid." The title is a play on Humphrey Bogart's famous line, "Here's looking at you, kid," from the movie "Casablanca."

The ancient Greek mathematician Euclid is known as the father of geometry. Bellos also had fun with the title of the UK edition of the book, "Alex's Adventures in Numberland,"  an obvious takeoff on the British classic, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

The book is subtitled, "A Surprising Excursion through the Astonishing World of Math."

In it, Bellos talks to two Ukrainian-American brothers who have built the world's biggest supercomputer in their New York apartment. He also went to Reno, Nevada to meet the man who sets the odds⁹ for more than half of the world's slot machines. While in Missouri, Bellos met with the president of the Dozenal Society of America.

"Dozenalists are people who believe the decimal system - the system of 10 digits¹⁰, zero to nine - is not very good, is not sufficient, and suggest we need to add two extra digits," say Bellos. "One might say it's crazy, trying to introduce two new numbers to the number system, but mathematically it makes a perfect sense because multiplication and division become much easier if we count in twelves rather than tens.

In exploring the wonder of math, Bellos discovered numbers are not innate¹¹ to humans. They were first used only about 5,000 years ago. And he found groups of people today that don't use numbers at all or very few of them.

"In the Amazon, I spoke¹² to a man who has been researching the tribe, the Munduruku, who have numbers up to five and that's it," he says. "Actually, they maybe even have numbers up to four because they have a word for one, for two, for three-ish, for four-ish and then they use the word palm or handful for five."

Bellos also stopped in Germany this summer to report on the bi-annual Mental Calculation World Cup. The 10-year-old competition has several categories: addition, multiplication, square root and calendar calculation. In that last event, contestants¹³ are given a number of dates and they have to figure out which days of the week those dates fall on - all in their head. The winner of the 2010 competition is 11 years old.

"Priyanshi Somani from India. She learned to calculate using an abacus," he says. "So when she's calculating, she's moving her hands around in the air in front of her as if there is an abacus there."

Somani later told Bellos she imagined she was using an abacus during the competition. When asked whether she could do the mental calculations without using her hands, Somani told Bellos that she didn't think so.

Bellos embarked¹⁴ on his around-the-world excursion to prove that mathematics is not a dry field of learning. The stories in his book prove that it's surprising and astonishing, as surely as the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle equals the sum of the square of its two other sides.
 

1 abacus   

n.算盘

参考例句：

• They also learned to use the abacus.他们还学习珠算。
• The abacus is the ancestor of the modern computer.算盘是现代电脑的原型。

2 intimidating   

vt.恐吓，威胁( intimidate的现在分词)

参考例句：

• They were accused of intimidating people into voting for them. 他们被控胁迫选民投他们的票。
• This kind of questioning can be very intimidating to children. 这种问话的方式可能让孩子们非常害怕。

3 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

7 mathematicians   

数学家( mathematician的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? 你以为我们的数学家做不到这一点吗？ 来自英汉文学
• Mathematicians can solve problems with two variables. 数学家们可以用两个变数来解决问题。 来自哲学部分

8 multiplication   

n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法

参考例句：

• Our teacher used to drum our multiplication tables into us.我们老师过去老是让我们反覆背诵乘法表。
• The multiplication of numbers has made our club building too small.会员的增加使得我们的俱乐部拥挤不堪。

9 odds   

n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别

参考例句：

• The odds are 5 to 1 that she will win.她获胜的机会是五比一。
• Do you know the odds of winning the lottery once?你知道赢得一次彩票的几率多大吗？

10 digits   

n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾

参考例句：

• The number 1000 contains four digits. 1000是四位数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The number 410 contains three digits. 数字 410 中包括三个数目字。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

11 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

12 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

13 contestants   

n.竞争者，参赛者( contestant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The competition attracted over 500 contestants representing 8 different countries. 这次比赛吸引了代表8个不同国家的500多名参赛者。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency. 两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 embarked   

乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事

参考例句：

• We stood on the pier and watched as they embarked. 我们站在突码头上目送他们登船。
• She embarked on a discourse about the town's origins. 她开始讲本市的起源。