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Tom Lehrer: New Math

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Tom Lehrer (1928-) is an American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician. He has lectured on mathematics and musical theater. Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs he recorded in the 1950s and 60s. His work often parodied popular song forms, notably in "The Elements", where he sets the names of the chemical elements to the tune of the "Major-General's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

New Math was a brief dramatic change in the way mathematics was taught in American grade schools during the 1960s. Tom Lehrer wrote a satirical song named "New Math" which centered around the process of subtracting 173 from 342 in decimal and octal. The song is in the style of a lecture about the general concept of subtraction in arbitrary number systems, illustrated by two simple calculations, and highlights the emphasis on insight and abstract concepts of the New Math approach. Lehrer's explanation of the two calculations is entirely correct, but presented in such a way (at rapid speed, with minimal visual aids, and with snide remarks thrown in) as to make it difficult for most audience members to follow the rather simple calculations being performed.

New Math

by Tom Lehrer, 1965

You can't take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now that's really four tens
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change a ten to ten ones,
And you add 'em to the two and get twelve,
And you take away three, that's nine.
Is that clear?

Now instead of four in the tens place
You've got three,
'Cause you added one,
That is to say, ten, to the two,
But you can't take seven from three,
So you look in the hundreds place.

From the three you then use one
To make ten ones...
(And you know why four plus minus one
Plus ten is fourteen minus one?
'Cause addition is commutative, right!)...
And so you've got thirteen tens
And you take away seven,
And that leaves five...

Well, six actually...
But the idea is the important thing!

Now go back to the hundreds place,
You're left with two,
And you take away one from two,
And that leaves...?

Everybody get one?
Not bad for the first day!

Hooray for New Math,
New-hoo-hoo Math,
It won't do you a bit of good to review math.
It's so simple,
So very simple,
That only a child can do it!

Come back tomorrow night...we're gonna do fractions!
 

See also: That's Mathematics, New Math, Lobachevsky, The Elements, Silent E, Who's Next, When You are Old and Gray, Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, Pollution.