dead reckoning:calculating without instruments

books:

	• Dead Reckoning: Calculating Without Instruments Ronald W. Doerfler Gulf Publishing, 1993 - 182 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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Great Idea, Poorly Proofread

There are many books designed to teach rapid calculation without aid of a machine. The topic that sets this one apart, and the entire reason I bought it is that it covers logarithms. Unlike most of the books in this genre this one does not waste space with endless examples and practice problems, anybody can create there own. It does back an impressive array of methods to increase speed in pencil and paper calculation, and makes it clear that each method has a time and place for maximal performance.

This book was well thought out, but unfortunately not well proofread. For example, pp 14 and 15 have the following mistakes:
"125 x n = 8n,000 / 8" should read "125 x n = n,000 / 8"
"37 can be represented as 111/4" should read "37 can be represented as 111/3"

The typos caused me to verify every method presented, but could lead unsuspecting travelers down the wrong path.
BOTTOM LINE: This books is a wonderful treasury of number sense that is riddled with typos.

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The magnum opus of mental arithmetic!

Imagine transforming your mind into a slide-rule with the added bonus of extra precision! "Dead Reckoning" is the ONLY book of its kind, running the gamut from ordinary operations like multiplication and division to roots (square, higher-order, and reciprocal), logarithms and their inverses, and finally trigonometric functions and their inverses. The book also contains other gems such as factorization techniques, continued fractions (for creating rational approximations), and also an algorithm which permits mental square root extractions to arbitrary precision. Those who feel daunted by symbolic formulas needn't worry, the book is replete with examples which provide both clarity and realism to the presentation. The author has an engaging style and has obviously taken great pains; the clarity of the exposition is excellent throughout. Moreover, the text is profusely referenced for those wishing to further pursue a topic that piques their interest. The techniques and strategies contained therein are as practical as they are efficient and are equally amenable to quick pen-and-paper calculations for those not interested in pursuing mental computations. Heartily recommended! - Grant Nixon

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dead reckoning:calculating without instruments

I bought this book so I could continue with a higher than arithmetic math. What I discovered was that although it does show algebra and other math, there are NO exercises in this book. It has fantastic math examples and processes. I wish it was designed to bring us along with it.

No author has gone as far as Doerfler in covering methods of mental calculation beyond simple arithmetic. Even if you have no interest in competing with computers you'll learn a great deal about number theory and the art of efficient computer programming. --Martin Gardner