The Seventh Night (Part 2)

The first thing I did before continuing to read this chapter was to reread what I blogged last week, to refresh my memory. As I began to continue with my reading, I was very excited to see that Robert seemed to be picking up on the “tricks” of the triangle they were creating. Robert said:

“I can see that the numbers along the sides will be all ones no matter how far down we go. And that I can fill in the numbers in the next diagonal rows on either side without doing the arithmetic because they’ll  just be the perfectly normal numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7…”

 

I loved the enthusiasm that Robert showed during this part of the chapter. After coming to this realization, he climbed up the triangle and began to fill in the numbers that he knew. At this point in my reading, I started thinking how beneficial the images throughout the chapter were for the reader. My assumptions are that many people reading this book are people that are not familiar with the math topics being covered. Without these pictures, it would be a lot more difficult to envision the proper triangle being created by Robert and The Number Devil. 

The next part of the chapter confused me a bit, and I had to do some outside research. After Robert filled in the triangle as much as he could, he was prompted by The Number Devil to see what numbers belong in the diagonal row, next to the “1,2,3,4,5,6,7…” row. 

“A knowing smile came over the number devil’s face as Robert read down the row from right to left. ‘1,3,6,10… Hey, they look familiar.’ ‘Coconuts!’ cried the number devil”

 

“Wait, What?” was basically my exact reaction at this point of reading. Why is The Number Devil talking about coconuts… what did I miss!?!?!? I turned to google, and found out that on the fifth night (the fifth chapter of the book) Robert ends up in a desert, and he learns about triangular numbers. The Number Devil teaches this concept by using coconuts. Here is an image I found online that illustrates the concept of triangular numbers

 

After this became clear to me, I really appreciated the connection between the chapters. This shows that Robert truly understood what he had previously learned. It also shows readers the connections that can be made between different mathematical concepts. I then continued reading, and saw that once The Number Devil refreshed Robert’s memory on the previous concept, he was able to use the “Wait, What? Coconut Method” to complete the next row of diagonal numbers. As Robert filled in more numbers, they began getting to be very large numbers. Robert was concerned that he was not able to do this kind of math in his head. The Number Devil was able to fill in the rest of the triangle with a “flash”.

As I continued reading, I remembered Christina’s blog about the different blocks and numbers lighting up. The Number Devil turned off the lights in the room, and lit up the top number of the triangle. He had Robert add up the second line, and then the third, which Robert stated was easy, and that he remembered their “friends” the hopping twos (which I blogged about last week and Christina clarified for me!). 

I stopped my reading for the week here, and am very eager to read the end of this chapter. So far, it has been very refreshing to read something that I would not typically read. I love reading different styles of writing, and I have to say I have never read a book about math before. The continuous connections throughout the book is a very great strategy that the author uses, and will be very beneficial for the students that are reading it. It will help them to understand that the mathematical concepts that they learn are important, and will keep popping up as they learn more advanced math.