Numerical Mysticism

I didn't get very much out of Nicomachus, but I do want to point out the very strong feelings he and the other Neo-Pythagoreans had about the importance of numbers.  They had an almost mystical relationship to them.  They weren't just useful tools, they were the key to understanding all of the universe. 
From Chapter VI:

All that has by nature with systematic method been arranged in the universe seems both in part and as a whole to have been determined and ordered in accordance with number, by the forethought and the mind of him that created all things; for the pattern was fixed, like a preliminary sketch, by the domination of number preexistent in the mind of the world-creating God, number conceptual only and immaterial in every way, but at the same time the true and eternal essence, so that with reference to it, as to an artistic plan, should be created all these things, time, motion, the heavens, the stars, all sorts of revolutions.

I don't know that you'd get this fervent praise of pure numbers from any mathematician of today. 

Introduction to Arithmetic - Nicomachus

Let me start by being honest.  I thought this piece was by far the most difficult and hardest to understand piece in the project.  I didn't understand nearly enough of it.  I was able to follow the first two third of the first book and very little after that.  I'll have some things to say on that part, but I really can't comment on the rest.
My wife teaches math in elementary school and she seemed interested in the things I was reading.  However, this is testing time of year so she couldn't really jump in with me.  It's possible that I'll come back and hit Nicomachus in more depth this summer. 

Another stumbling block is that I don't have a very good head for math.  This feels like something of a cop-out but experience has shown it to be true.  I'm quite good with kitchen math (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing), even to the extent that I can give fairly trustworthy estimates of figures without breaking the numbers down.  Where I fail is in the very abstract stuff, which unfortunately is well represented in 'Introduction to Arithmetic'. 
I also have trouble with math when I can't see the goal of it.  I know that even the parts of it that seem the most impractical have led to real breakthroughs and important things.  But this is an area where my mind wants some concrete resolution.  In school I had trouble with Algebra but really excelled in Geometry. 

Anyway, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Biography of Nichomacus

Very little is known of the life of Nichomacus.  It is believed that he lived sometime around 100AD.  That figure is based on clues from his writing; who he did and did not mention.  He was probably from a Greek city in the area of Palestine.  He probably studied at Alexandria, in Egypt.
He was an important popularizer of Neo-Pythagoreanism, publishing books on Harmonics and Arithmetic.  It is believed that he also wrote 'An Introduction to Geometry' and a 'Life of Pythagoras' but those works are now lost.  It's possible that he also wrote about Plato and may have written an 'Introduction to Astronomy'.
His 'Introduction to Arithmetic' was used as a text book into the Middle Ages.  Which must make it one of the most studied math books in all of history.  Nichomachus was considered part of the 'golden chain' of true philosophers (or at least that was claimed by a a fifth-century Neo-Platonist named Proclus).
In short, we don't know much about him personally, but he played a key role in spreading the knowledge of Greek mathematicians into later ages.

Readings for May

Only one this month.

Nicomachus: Introduction to Arithmetic link

Readings for May

I think this is the only thing so far that the Amazon Kindle department doesn't know anything about.

May Nicomachus: Introduction to Arithmetic link