{"id":180,"date":"2008-08-22T15:02:13","date_gmt":"2008-08-22T19:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/22\/review-of-the-cat-in-numberland-by-ivar-ekeland\/"},"modified":"2008-10-10T22:08:41","modified_gmt":"2008-10-11T02:08:41","slug":"review-of-the-cat-in-numberland-by-ivar-ekeland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Cat in Numberland, by Ivar Ekeland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cat_in_numberland.jpg\"\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The Cat in Numberland<\/em><\/p>\n

by Ivar Ekeland<\/p>\n

illustrated by John O’Brien<\/p>\n

Cricket Books, Chicago, 2006.\u00a0 60 pages.<\/p>\n

I love this book!\u00a0 It takes\u00a0the concept of “countability”\u00a0which I learned about in upper division math classes and graduate school, and makes those concepts accessible and understandable for elementary school children!<\/p>\n

It starts with a hotel in Numberland, run by Mr. and Mrs. Hilbert.\u00a0 The Numbers all live in this hotel, the Hotel Infinity.\u00a0 Number One lives in Room 1.\u00a0 Number Two lives in Room 2, and so on.\u00a0 “For instance, Number One Million Two Hundred Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Six lives in Room 1,234,566.”<\/p>\n

The numbers have certain games they like to play together, and there are certain quirks to the owners.<\/p>\n

Some more fun begins when Zero comes to visit and wants to stay, but the hotel is full.\u00a0 How could they possibly fit him in?<\/p>\n

They come up with an ingenious solution:<\/p>\n

“Everyone moves up one room:<\/p>\n

Number One moves to Room 2,<\/p>\n

Number Two moves to Room 3,<\/p>\n

Number One Million Two Hundred Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Six moves to Room 1,234,567, where he finds a bigger bed and is more comfortable.<\/p>\n

Room 1 is now empty, and Zero moves in and goes to sleep.<\/p>\n

All the other Numbers go back to sleep in their new rooms, and Mr. and Mrs. Hilbert go back to sleep in their old room.<\/p>\n

Only the cat by the fireplace does not go back to sleep, because she is trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n

The hotel was full, she thinks.\u00a0 There was one guest in each room.\u00a0 Now it is full again, and there is still one guest in each room, but there is one more guest in the hotel!\u00a0 Zero was outside.\u00a0 Now he has moved in, and yet nothing has changed!\u00a0 How is that possible?”<\/p>\n

This is only the beginning of the perplexities facing the cat at this amazing hotel, based on the work of great mathematicians Georg Cantor and David Hilbert.<\/p>\n

I find this book absolutely delightful!\u00a0 I wish it had been around when I was taking Real Analysis.\u00a0 Or, better yet, when my little boy was obsessed with infinity, and kept inventing “numbers” that were “bigger than infinity.”\u00a0 I think he would have enjoyed this story.<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Childrens_Nonfiction\/cat_in_numberland.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 The Cat in Numberland by Ivar Ekeland illustrated by John O’Brien Cricket Books, Chicago, 2006.\u00a0 60 pages. I love this book!\u00a0 It takes\u00a0the concept of “countability”\u00a0which I learned about in upper division math classes and graduate school, and makes those concepts accessible and understandable for elementary school children! It starts with a hotel in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-nonfiction-review","category-mathematical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}