The Mathemagician's Guide to Lightning Calculation and Amazing Math Tricks

I must say this Kindle book was a nice surprise - although the topic might discourage many people from browsing this book at all, I find the book to be very well written and appropriate for all audiences regardless of educational background. Formatting on the Kindle is overall acceptable, but with the occasional missing word or sub phrase, like in this example in Locations 2933-42 "Thus February 12, 1809, has and 14+14 = 0, so ..."

After growing woefully bad at mental arithmetic, I purchased this book in preparation for an MBA program this fall. It is amazing how much "Mental Math" has helped me regain my confidence and improve my math skills. You should note, however, that this book doesn't offer any magic secrets. The book offers systematic approaches toward mental math, but it takes practice and effort to master these basics. I tend to practice by pulling numbers off of license plates while I'm on the road and performing different arithmetic operations on them in my head. To practice with more "real world" examples, I take numbers from business magazines and made appropriate calculations (percentage increase/ decrease in profits, etc). I hope you get as much from the book as I have!

We have only just started with the tricks so this isn't a thorough review but we are loving it! My son loves math and loves learning these. I have never been fabulous at math and am really enjoying learning it as well.

I found it very enjoyable and effective to go thru the exercises. The author has a way of describing the tricks that makes you want to apply them and have a great idea how to do so -- and it works.

Some of the chapters seemed superfluous, not really focused on the math stuff. I could have used even more practice -- as it is, I repeatedly went thru the same exercises to maximize my speed.

I think this could be enough to help someone's psychology into thinking they had become a math whiz -- and that's what being a whiz is, largely a matter of attitude!

This is also an effective book to read for a distraction; it's different enough from most people's concerns that someone angry or depressed or whatever might find this a great relief.

Cool book, collecting lots of neat little tricks for mental math. Teaches some tricks for speeding up simple calculations and some surprising tricks to make things that seem very difficult actually quite easy.

Book well-organized, but I have not completed reading the entire book yet (time issue on my part). Have practiced a number of the mental tricks outlined in the book and they are insightful and engaging.

After seeing this author reviewed on the Colbert Report, I ordered it for my 12 year old grandaughter. Her mother tells me that she has spent hours in her room reading it. This has been followed by endless statements like "Go ahead ask me the square root of ...." It is a winner!

I wish every school would teach math by Dr. Benjamin’s methods. We’d probably never create math-hating-fearing students with this professor’s intriguing, easy and logical approaches to using numbers.
I didn’t believe Benjamin’s claim to do mental calculations faster than a calculator until I learned (quickly) two processes in his Chapter 0 (the first chapter)—how to multiply instantly any two or three digit number by eleven. The process is so simple that I calculated answers faster than a problem could even be punched into a calculator. That hooked me on Dr. Benjamin’s math teaching. Just for the joy involved!
His Chapter One teaches addition and subtraction in your head super fast. Other chapters teach such processes as basic, intermediate and advanced multiplication and division, squaring numbers and memorizing numbers easily—all without paper or pencil.
Chapter Nine discusses the art of mathematical magic—how to wow people with your speedy mental calculations. Maybe doing so would help convince the world and those who think they hate math that the subject can be FUN.

Gave these out as end-of-the year rememberances to the 4th and 5th graders at an elementary school Math Pentathlon club. Next year, if I can find a sponsor, I plan to hand them out as the beginning of the year as de facto textbooks for that age. Used it over the year to teach how to do math in their heads to make them faster at the games. Usually took 10-15 minutes at beginning of club meeting to work on mental tricks, mostly from this book (or Khan Academy), and an hour and a quarter practicing the five games which are part of the Math Pentathlon competition. In one school year with once per week after-school practice, my group wasn't able to get too deep into the weeds. But the instruction piece really helped their level of competitiveness on the games, especially learning to add and multiply (relatively) large numbers in their heads. The trick about multiplying by eleven alone will delight even a struggling math-o-phobe.

Some parts are well-written, some a little dense and repetitive. Getting good at these tricks really does require practice (along with already knowing one's multiplication tables). But if parents are putting time in at home to practice them with their kids, the payoff would happen pretty quick. Very useful techniques, once mastered.

Just reading this book won't make you better at math. But reading it and doing all the practice activities will. You'll get out of this book what you put into it.

Secrets of Mental Math by Benjamin and Shermer is good reading even if you don't do all the exercises. There are lots of simple secrets that are worth knowing, but this is NOT in the book. When I first learned math all my teachers were women. When I nine and didn't do well they said not to worry, GIRLS BRAINS WERE DIFFERENT AND THEY NEVER DID WELL IN MATH. When I got older I was taught binary, hex, octal, radix points etc. by a man teacher and was great at it. It was then I realized I was good at math, but my women teachers were not good at teaching it. Why? Because when they were about nine they had been told the same thing they told me, girls can't do math. This book is worth reading for any adult, but when you're finished give it to any nine year old you can find, especially girls. If you have children do yourself a favor and give them this book.

I have seen these commercials about this program over and over, and my birthday was coming up, so i figured i may as well give it a try. It had lots of useful information, that is kind of obvious when you think about it, but so effective. from easy to complicated math, this is what i wished they taught us in school, because america would finally be in the top 20 smartest countries. overall, definitely worth it.