Carrier Context:
History
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Willis Haviland Carrier did pretty well for a boy who had to slice a peck of apples into halves, quarters and eighths to grasp the notion of fractions.
Raised on a farm near the snowy eastern shore of Lake Erie in Angola, New York, the young Carrier grew up as an only child in an extended family of adults including his grandparents and great aunt. Some described him as a solitary youth who entertained himself playing games of his own invention.
In his adult years, legends grew around him as a problem-solving genius who sometimes noodled solutions for a year or two. Perhaps that skill was an outgrowth of his difficulty with fractions.
"My mother told me to bring up a pan of apples from the cellar," Carrier said. "She had me cut them into halves, quarters and eighths and add and subtract the parts. Fractions took on a new meaning and I felt as if no problems would be too hard for me I'd simply break them down to something simple and they would be easy to solve."
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