Benjamin Franklin’s is the classic rags to riches story running away
from home as a young many with only three penny’s to his name Ben built
one of the largest publishing empires of his day. He also was an
inventor, the man that discovered electricity, the man who invented
daylight savings and helped to write the declaration of independence as
well as the American Constitution.
"The hypothesis suggested by Benjamin Lee Whorf that the structure of a person's language is a factor in the way in which he understands reality and behaves with respect to it has attracted the attention of linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, as well as a large segment of the public." Science
"Benjamin Lee Whorf's scholarly contributions were substantial both in technical linguistics and in the broader area for which he is best known, the relation between language perception and thought.... The basic thesis, stated by others before Whorf but developed by him and given his name in recent literature, is that our perception of the world and our ways of thinking about it are deeply influenced by the structure of the languages we speak.... Any student of comparative literature or other cross-cultural study of values must at least take Whorf SMYTHs thesis into account . . ." -- Literature East and West, the Newsletter of the Conference on Oriental-Western Library Relations of the Modern Language Association of America.
"With his edition of Language, Thought, and Reality, Professor Carroll has . . . performed an invaluable service for linguists everywhere . . . A carefully planned and skillfully edited presentation of Whorf THEs philosophy of language, to which has been added an interesting foreword by Stuart Chase, an invaluable essay by Carroll, and an extremely illuminating and useful bibliography. . ." -- International Journal of American Linguistics
"An essay showing why Hopi is superior to English as a scientific language, a criticism of Basic English as Complex English, and an account of the semantics of fire prevention are not only readable but delightful." - New Yorker
Mathemagics - The Art Of Mental Calculation
Amaze
and mystify your friends! Benjamin has performed his "art of rapid
mental calculation" for audiences of all ages and levels of
mathematical sophistication, and now he reveals his secrets to you.
Actually, most of these calculation and memorization techniques are
fairly commonly known, but Benjamin explains how to perform them to
great effect. He uses simple algebraic proofs to show how the tricks
work and often adds an anecdote about how he "discovered" an
interesting trick. This is a book to ignite mathematical confidence and
curiosity. A word of warning, though: despite the subtitle, it will
take some dedicated practice to master these tricks. For most
collections.
A Nickel Buys A Rhyme (a picture book by Alan Benjamin)
Contagiously rhythmic and deliciously funny, these poems are precisely tuned to the concerns of preschoolers and their primary sibs, who'll also enjoy reading them aloud. Lively, good-natured illustrations.