Algebra Unplugged Paperback – November 1, 2013

This book is an excellent introduction to Algebra. I hesitate to even call this book an introduction because it's much more than that-the understanding it provides ends up opening up some pretty deep concepts. Trust me, to actually understand "why" makes the doing of something a whole lot easier.For those of us who are "right brained" (tending towards intuitive, creative, artistic, empathetic), math can be a harrowing experience if you are without the proper tools. To look at the laundry list of formulas, rules, exceptions, etc that don't seem to make any logical sense can be highly frustrating for the right-brained among us, who tend to extrapolate how we do things from logical observations then create our own ways to solve problems (in order for this to work we need to know why something works or why it's true or false). This book breaks everything down to where when you are presented with a problem you know one or more of the following:1. What your goal in the problem is.2. Why you would need to know how to do this and how it can help you in real life.3. How it works, so you can know how to apply the concepts intuitively rather than being limited to only things you've memorized from the list of magic formulae.4. Why there are so many things that don't seem to make any sense at all (ie why you can't divide by zero) and what you should do about it.The book is collaboration between Kenn Amdahl, (writer, poet, musician, and decided right-brainer) and Dr Jim Loats (a university mathematics professor), so you're getting the best of both worlds here.I have always been pretty good at math through sheer brute force, but I've always hated it. Until now. Now I actually understand exactly what I'm doing and why and actually enjoy doing math problems the same way other right-brainers enjoy cross word puzzles or scrabble. Scary I know. Get this book.

This should be the introduction to every book, or something very similar. it tells you the why of all the strange and wonderful things. I just did what they told me in class. It became clear in a lot of instances. But until I read this book a lot of things remained hazy. It would have been a lot better to have this in the beginning.The style is fun and breezy. Bit too breezy at times. It covers the material quickly, but thoroughly. it is the book I wish I had in high school

I read this book and understood it with out straining myself even after not cracking an Algebra book in decades. In high school I got straight A's in Algebra. But in college Calculus I struggled hard to get a passing C. I thought I was not smart enough to understand Calculus. Dr. Jim described me to a T in this book. He said the reason why so many students struggle with Calculus is because in high school they memorized a bunch of rules without understanding why, passing their exams, and never again thinking about Algebra. When I signed up for Calculus it had been over two years since I opened an Algebra book. To do Calculus you need to do the Algebra to solve the problems. Looking back it was amazing that I got a C on the course. Its been over 30 years since I got my degree in business. This book is an excellent starting point for getting back on the right track with math. Now I am fully pumped in knowing that I will not be wasting my time getting back into shape, mathematically speaking, before applying for admissions to pursue a second degree, this time in science. In high school, I found math easy, but I was not in love with it. In fact, I could not wait until I finished my required math courses, Algebra I&II, Trig, and Geometry. If my instructors were like Dr. Jim it's possible that I may have learned to love those courses. If you have children in high school Algebra this is a must gift for them. Or if you are thinking like me to make the plunge again and not sure if you end up drowning first, this book is a must read for you.

Great review of the foundations

After multiple phone calls, they finally fixed it. Hurray! It was a trial, but now you can order this great book on kindle and have it work too!About a year ago I purchased this very fine book for my kindle. The file consisted entirely of a message telling me the file was intended for sitb migration only and I would get a new file once some sort of process was finished. This, of course, is not possible and never happened. Amazon refunded my money and for awhile removed the faulty kindle book from the website. I was pretty happy when I saw it had come back yesterday and I purchased the book again. Sadly it was the exact same bad file with the exact same message! They have refunded my money again, but be careful about buying it until they fix it.

Best of all the authors explain what it is you're doing when you do algebra. Why doesn't it make sense in the real world? Because it's a game. The conventions may seem arbitrary but the rules are not. The authors multiply things like tenors and pigs and divide them by all kinds of non-mathematical things in order to illustrate the logic of mathematical thinking. They also show that people are thinking algebraically even when they don't know they're doing so. This is a great book if you took algebra a long time ago and are not sure you remember the differences between the various mathematical disciplines. It's also good if you are the type who wants everything explained to you in math, rather than taking it on faith. It won't replace the standard textbook, but it will show you how to use it.

I actually bought this book for my neighbor. You see she is going to a community college and is having a very hard time understanding algebra. I saw this book and downloaded the e-version onto my Kindle. When I started reading it I decided this would be the perfect book for her, explaining algebra in simple laymen terms. Since I am really good at Algebra I told her to read the book and if she has any question just knock on my door. I have to say I really like the way the author explains Algebra and he even adds some humor to it. So if you are one of those that you will never understand Algebra you need to get this book.

This is an absolutely outstanding overview of algebra from a conceptual approach. The book says it’s aimed at people who struggle with Math but even if you don’t it might just help you understand what you already know on a deeper level.I’ve always been good at Math, it has always been quite intuitive for me. The problem with this is, I know how to get an answer, but I’m never really certain why that works. Also because of this, when’d I haven’t used a topic for a while I have to spend some time remembering how it all works again. This book opened my mind up to all of the why’s that I had never been taught. Now do not only do I understand what to do, but I also get why these things works. It also did a really good job of showing what was happening under the hood on some of the shortcuts that math teachers used.If you’ve ever found yourself confused by math or algebra pick up this book and give it a try. I wish I had been shown it in high school, everything would’ve gone so much faster!

Good

This book sure helped us as homeschoolers to understand the principles, and they use lots of 'humor' to help keep it interesting, and lots of examples. But it's actually quite silly sometimes which got tiresome. I very much recommend it if you can overlook that. They made it possible to understand the "real algebra book" as they put it.

This is a great read and entertaining. Explains the concept which make it easy to remember why any number with an exponent of "zero" equals "one". I started with Calculus for Cats, but had to go back to this to firm up the base. Trig is next.