In what is called the English, or customary, system of measurement, there are 12 inches in a foot, 3 feet in a yard, 16£ feet in a rod, and 5,280 feet in a mile. Why such odd numbers? Well, it's...
Back and forth and up and down numbers
The number one is more than zero, of course. But can a one ever be less than zero? Yes, it can! Suppose you are standing at the middle of a long line drawn on the ground. Let's call the place...
The smallest number
There is no biggest number. But is there a smallest number? Well, the number one is the smallest of the numbers that we count with. But it isn't really the smallest of all numbers. You see, the...
Nine
The ancient Greeks thought of nine as a shape with nine sides and nine corners. Such a shape is called a nonagon, which means "nine corners." They also thought of nine as nine dots arranged in the...
Eight
The Greeks of long ago thought of eight as a shape with eight sides and eight corners. Such a shape is called an octagon, a name that means "eight corners." They also saw eight as a shape called a...
Six
> Long ago, the Greeks discovered something very odd about six. It can > be divided evenly by three numbers that are less than itself---one, > two, and three. And, these three numbers add up to six!...
Five
Think of the number five as five dots that you can arrange in a flat shape that has five sides and five corners, or angles. A shape of this kind is called a pentagon, a name that means "five...
Kinds of matter
How many kinds of matter are there? So many that if you started to count them, you probably would never finish! But if you could sort out the atoms in all of that matter, you would find that there...
CITY OF CANALS
In Venice, Italy, the streets are canals. So instead of seeing cars, you can see flat-bottomed boats called gondolas. Venice is built on a cluster of small mud islands. The canals twist around the...
THE RED BRICK WALL
Long ago, some African people, called the Moors, built a fortress in Granada, Spain. They also built a palace behind the red brick walls of the fortress. They called the fortress and palace...
