Chapter 1

[Note: see end of excerpt for Sidebars interspersed throughout the chapter.]

My friend Sam, he's crazy about math. Me (the name's Jeremy), I can do without it. Math has nothing to do with me, and I have nothing to do with it -- except when it comes to homework, and then I'm the kind of guy who needs a calculator desperately. At least, that's what I thought until last fall, when we had our great math debate or, as I like to call it, "The Number Rumble." That was the day when... but wait, first let me tell you about Sam.

Sam was still new to the neighborhood when The Number Rumble happened. He had moved in next door a few weeks before school started. At first, I thought he was just like me: tall, dark, and good-looking, well, except that he's got red hair, and the light skin to go with it. And I don't wear glasses. And, okay, so the good-looking part's just an illusion. But we liked the same things, like swimming, blading, biking, video games. There was one major, major difference, though -- he was nuts about numbers and anything else to do with math. Not that he was studying all summer or anything. We goofed around a lot. Pretty soon, he was just Sam to me. A regular guy who saw the world differently -- as numbers, shapes, and patterns.

When we started school, everyone thought he was either a genius or a geek. Sam says he's neither. He prefers the word "mathnik" -- thinks it describes us technology-crazy kids perfectly. No way, I said, not me. But Sam says we were all born mathniks. I wasn't so sure about that, but there's no arguing with the guy.

Anyway, Sam's low-key about his talent -- doesn't make a big deal about it. "Math is nothing special," he's always saying. "It's everywhere and in everything, and we all use it, not just me."

Well, one day, he had to prove it.

When the news first broke, there was cheering across the city. The director of education for our region had just announced that he was cutting math from the curriculum. No more math? Great, I thought. But when Sam's mom told him the news at breakfast, he said he jumped a mile -- wait, Sam prefers metric, so make that 1.609 kilometers -- out of his chair, like he was on fire. And he wasn't jumping for joy. He rushed straight upstairs to his computer to check out the details. Scanning the headlines, he clicked on "Goodbye Math: Kids Face Regional Math Ban":

Mathematics will be removed from the school curriculum, effective immediately, director of education Lawrence Lake announced today.

Lake says he has been considering the move for months, and believes that removing the topic will have little impact on students. "All kids need is a bit of basic arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division," Lake said. "Heck, they can use calculators for most of that. Math isn't much more anyway. I mean, who needs the extra stress? Budgets bother me, statistics stump me, fractions frazzle me -- if I'm having so much trouble with math, how's the average student or teacher going to get through it?"

Asked what parents and teachers thought, Lake cited widespread support for the move, saying many of them shared his views and were certain that children would experience less stress without mathematics.

Sam told me he lost it then. He was so mad, he just threw on yesterday's clothes lying on the floor (hey, mathniks dump their clothes on the floor like the rest of us) and ran right over. That tells you how upset he was. Normally, he's the mix'n'match master -- he'd be consulting this big chart on his closet door for different combinations, never wearing the same thing twice.

Sam just about exploded through the door at my house. "Jeremy! Did you hear the news? No more math!"

"Sounds good to me," I responded immediately.

"Are you kidding? No more fractions! No more percents! Geometry and graphs, gone. In all probability, no probability! How could they do this?"

He went on like this all the way to school. Half the time I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, but I could tell he needed to get it out of his system. Anyway, when we got there, it was a circus. Talk about chaos! Recycling bins full of math texts, notebooks, rulers, even calculators and kids everywhere tossing in more! Teachers, too. I pointed out Mrs. Norton, our math teacher, to Sam -- you should have seen the grin on her face. I always knew she hated teaching math.

The news cameras were there too.

Someone thrust a microphone in my face. "What do you think of the ban, kids? I guess you're pleased, eh?"

"I've got no problem with it," I said.

"Are you kidding?" Sam shoved me aside. "The idea is crazy! Does the director have any idea what life would be like without math? If I had just one afternoon with Mr. Lake, I'd show him just how much he needs it..."

"I think that's a great idea," cut in Ms. Kay, the school librarian, before the startled reporter could question Sam further. "Why don't we organize a little debate right here at our school? It would be an excellent learning opportunity... for young Samuel and Jeremy, and the other kids, of course."

She was smiling sweetly as she said this, but I wondered what she was planning. Ms. Kay had a way of getting people to do what she wanted, and the way she made out that Sam was some ordinary kid seemed... well, sneaky. And she's a teacher!

Anyway, the reporter whipped out her cell phone, called the director of education and asked if he would come to the school for "a little debate with a concerned student." He laughed and said sure, he'd come by during lunch. The reporter hung up and nodded at us. "See you back here at lunch then."

I glanced at Ms. Kay's face as we left. Why did she look so pleased?

SIDEBARS (interspersed throughout the chapter):

Jeremy Wrestles with the Weird Stuff

Sam says that scientists can prove that babies recognize differences in the numbers of things only two days after they're born! According to these scientists, then, as a baby I'd get bored seeing picture after picture showing two dots, no matter how the dots were arranged, but I'd get excited as soon as you switched to a picture of three dots. When I was a few months older I could tell the difference between bigger numbers like 8 and 16. At five months I'd get upset if you tried to show me that one toy plus one toy equals three, and at nine months, I knew that 5 + 5 = 10! Pretty smart back then, wasn't I? So what happened...?

Sam's Mix'n'Match Wardrobe Combinations

[Illustrated with Sam's closet chart and an illustration of ice cream cones]

Most people have a favorite kind of ice cream. But mathniks like to look at all the options. First, the combinations: how many double-scoop cones can you get if the scoops are different flavors and it doesn't matter what flavor's on top? Then the permutations -- how many if it does matter? (Permutations are for picky eaters!) Tip: if you're first in line looking at 198 flavors on a hot day -- just choose chocolate!

Jeremy Wrestles with the Weird Stuff

Sam's always getting on my case about the word "chaos." When I use it, I mean a huge, confused mess! But Sam says that in mathematics, chaos is something that's perfectly logical underneath, even though the situation is always changing and impossible to predict. That's because tiny changes at the start make a huge difference in the end. It's called the "butterfly effect." In weather systems, for example, the air stirred by a butterfly's wing can trigger other changes that lead, months down the road, to a hurricane halfway around the world! The same thing happens in pinball the tiniest difference in the way you launch the ball changes its route in a major way.

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Excerpted from The Great Number Rumble: A Story of Math in Surprising Places by Cora Lee, Gillian O'Reilly
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