Without math, how would romance survive? Where would we be without pluses and minuses? Without public opinion and box office tallies? Without measuring cups, calorie counters, or computer technology? More than just a class you tried to avoid, math defines modern life. Around the home, business applications, even theoretical physics.... Everyone uses it, just do the math. Math is too complicated. Math is too hard. Not anymore. The Handy Math Answer Book eliminates the instant headache and helps the many math- challenged among us better understand and enjoy the magic of numbers. You can count on it. From modern-day challenges such as balancing a checkbook, following the stock market, buying a home, and figuring out credit card finance charges to appreciating historical developments like the use of algebra by Mesopotamian mathematicians, The Handy Math Answer Book addresses more than 1,000 questions relating to mathematics. Handy Math provides a complete overview, beginning with the early history--Pythagoras and the music of the spheres, Archimedes and his Eureka! moment in the bathtub, and how some of the first calendars were invented. Catch yourself falling for the gravity of Newton and winding your way around modern-day string theory. Refresh yourself on the basics and fundamentals of algebra, calculus, geometry (including why the word derived from earth measuring), and trigonometry. Organized in sixteen chapters that cluster similar topics in an easily accessible format, Handy Math provides clear and concise explanations to paradoxes, theories, fundamentals of geometry, and other branches of mathematics, plus the numbers we see daily in statistics, financial and market reports, weather forecasts, real estate evaluations, games, and measurements of all kinds. Handy Math's straightforward language is supported by more than 200 charts, graphs, illustrations, and photographs.