Arithmetic by Hand

a short guide to addition, subtraction, multiplication & division using pen & paper

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Arithmetic by Hand is a 40 page booklet that teaches pen & paper arithmetic. It covers positive & negative whole number & decimal addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. It even includes a multiplication table.

Arithmetic by Hand was designed to be kept on the corner of a desk or within arms reach on a bookshelf. It was designed to solve the problem of dense, convoluted textbooks or needing to log into a computer to access the information.

Rather than hundreds of sheets of text with a dozen opening pages on copyright, acknowledgements, dedications and preface, this booklet cuts right to the point. The table of contents is found on the very first page, followed by a short introduction and an explanation of the most fundamental element of arithmetic by hand: place-value digits.

Arithmetic by Hand is organized into four sections covering the main operations of math: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Throughout are many examples of arithmetic done by hand.

Arithmetic by Hand doesn’t teach basic numbers, nor does it explain all the rules of arithmetic (though some are given where useful). Instead, this book focuses on the fundamental skill of solving problems of math using pen and paper, without excess.

Here are some samples from Arithmetic by Hand:

Why did you create this book?

I’ll start with my personal reasons, then tie in the wider reasons.

Over the past several years I’ve been programming computers and trying little home engineering projects. I kept running into skill issues surrounding math: it had been awhile since I really used math for anything and I started to recognize that a lot of (most?) great things are developed with math as a tool.

I decided, for my long term benefit, to turn back and focus on the fundamentals of math, building from the ground up. I first started with algebra but realized I would benefit even more if I developed the root: arithmetic and the methods to solve it by hand.

I quickly noticed, after much frustration, how much effort I was spending to get ahold of this basic information, which seems rather odd given how absolutely fundamental arithmetic by hand is to math.

You’d think the most fundamental information to one of the greatest disciplines would be the easiest to access, but building the full picture meant digging through textbooks, searching online course material, asking a ton of questions of AI, and sifting through websites. I naively assumed I could pluck the information out of the internet easily. But arithmetic by hand is often wrapped up with rules of arithmetic, or buried throughout convoluted textbooks. I simply wanted the bare information. Just give me the information!

Here are the problems: textbooks are dense and the language is unbearable, course material is lighter but requires a lot of digging, AI gives generally good information but is rarely comprehensive and requires a computer to reference, videos are useful but aren’t so conveniently referenceable, and websites are full of ads and are as confusing to navigate as a maze. There are non-textbook books out there on the subject, but they are also dense, with a typical page count of 400 or so. Why would I want a book that’s 400 pages when the information can be presented in one-tenth that size? It’s bonkers.

Seeing just how much effort I was putting into getting all this information, I decided to assemble a little reference manual for my own benefit. After making that decision, I began to notice a lot of videos from homeschoolers complaining about similar issues: 1) how absolutely convoluted modern textbooks are and how they don’t really serve the reader as well as expected, and 2) that using computers and digital screens to teach fundamental subjects is just not good for young brains.

So I started asking questions: where in the universe is there a rule that something must be 500 pages to be useful? Do I need to carry around something as heavy as a stone to learn a subject? How do the many opening pages of preface, dedication, acknowledgements, and copyright benefit me, the reader? And why is the table of contents buried somewhere in that mess? Why isn’t the table of contents the very first thing I see, especially when I’ll need to reference it to navigate something as dense as 500 pages? Is the problem with education mostly rooted in how convoluted course material is? Does a student need to spend $50-100 on a book to learn something that is fundamental to human flourishing?

Here’s another question worth asking: Why do I get the sense that the people who write textbooks never use them?

As a personal pastime over the last decade, thanks to my interest in art, I’ve studied design, or how products are arranged to best benefit the user. Material education today seems to be completely detached from the actual experience of the student, as though the people who write the material never themselves use it. It’s as though the writer and the reader exist in entirely separate universes.

Arithmetic by Hand was designed first and foremost for my own benefit and pleasure, because if I’m not pleased with what I use, why would the next person be?

And since I didn’t create this book to pass rigid education standards, I was free to design it in a way that is comfortable, concise, and easy to digest. It’s astounding how much simpler something can be when free of bureaucratic constraints.

So combined with my own personal interest in math as well as the terrible state of education today, it was obvious the world could benefit from something simpler (and cheaper, and more transportable, and more practical).

I created Arithmetic by Hand to solve a mountain of problems.

What really is arithmetic?

The ancient Greeks related arithmetic to the sublime, as a way to reveal the system on which the universe runs. Arithmetic was a delight in numbers.

Today arithmetic is much more austere: while it’s the cornerstone of math, it’s often simplified to operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Just about everything else in math that is advanced reduces down to those four fundamental operations.

Arithmetic by hand is a reliable technique to handle those four operations with larger numbers. While we can easily multiply small problems such as 4 × 2 in our heads, it’s much more difficult to multiply 5416 × 7032. Arithmetic by Hand teaches you how to solve those larger problems, step by step, using pen and paper.

Is Arithmetic by Hand available as an eBook?

No! The entire purpose of this book is to be material. It was designed to be held, to be referenced, to be accessed and read in daylight or by a nice incandescent bulb.

“Well you might sell more copies if you make an eBook.” Sure.

Did you use AI to write this book?

Not really. I wrote Arithmetic by Hand and this website all on my own. I say “not really” because I did use Google AI to double check the phrasing of some concepts and such from time to time but that was about it.

I really wanted to design this book and create something that felt right. I also created it for my own benefit too, and it’s hard to learn something if you just hand over the whole process to AI. There is a certain satisfaction in writing and creating things on one’s own.

Important shipping & handling info

Arithmetic by Hand is printed by a print-on-demand company based in Tennessee, United States. When you order it here, they print it and ship it to you. Because of their high volume of orders as well as basic mail shipping & handling, expect your order to take 1 to 2 weeks to deliver. The sooner you order, the sooner it arrives. If the order has taken more than 2 weeks to deliver, feel free to reach out to me, clifffrancisorion@gmail.com.

I understand that as a culture we’re used to overnight delivery with Amazon, but I’m running a small business, and this is the most ideal approach I can take for now. Thank you for your patience and I’m grateful for your business! Think long term, rather than quick fix.

Shipping is currently only available in the United States of America. If you live outside the US, email me at clifffrancisorion@gmail.com and let me know, and if enough people do so I’ll figure out a solution. The print-on-demand business I use has another printing facility in the United Kingdom, so with enough logistical problem solving, it could be possible. Just let me know.

*Because of the print-on-demand process, the cover and interior pages might be slightly offset.

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Testimonials

This is a fresh book! For now you’ll just have to trust in what I’m offering. But this is also an opportunity for you to share your own testimonial. Once you get the book and spend a decent amount of time with it, send me your testimonial so I can include it here for others. (Also it’s just nice to hear from people, so don’t be shy!)

Who is Cliff Orion?

Cliff Orion is a pen name. My real name’s Joe. I went with a pen name for a couple of reasons: for one I’m a pretty private guy. I don’t care for fame, and I don’t like putting my face and name all over the internet. I know, thousands of people do it without a problem but it feels weird to me. Also, I have my real name associated with a bunch of disparate projects and interests, so using a pen name helps keep this branch of interest organized into math.

Cliff Orion (or the long handle Cliff Francis Orion) was chosen out of respect for the greatest song ever created and its writer: “Orion” by Cliff Burton (RIP) of Metallica, which I listened to just about every day while writing Arithmetic by Hand. I’m also really into astronomy, having tried over the past many years to memorize the names of all the constellations in the northern hemisphere’s sky whenever I’m out camping in the Sierras. The ancient Greeks regarded music and astronomy as extensions of math, so the name Cliff Orion is not so disconnected.

I tried to come up with other names that relate to math, but couldn’t come up with anything else that really stuck. Francis as a middle name is a nod to some very interesting figures in history that played a substantial role in establishing today’s culture: Sir Richard Francis Burton and Sir Francis Drake, both British explorers. If you like wild journeys, read anything on Burton or the books he wrote, or the book In Search of a Kingdom on Drake and how he was the first captain from start to finish to completely navigate the globe, and the absolutely insane perils he faced along the way.

Email

clifffrancisorion@gmail.com