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| Discovering Mathematics: The Art of Investigation | 
 enlarge | Author: Anthony Gardiner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $54.00
Buy Used: $7.42
You Save: $46.58 (86%)
New (3) Used (24) from $7.42
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1891875
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 220
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6
ISBN: 0198532652
Dewey Decimal Number: 510
EAN: 9780198532651
ASIN: 0198532652
Publication Date: May 14, 1987
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: EX-LIBRARY; used item may have library binding and show stamps, stickers or other marks. Items not meeting quality expectations may be returned for refund. Buy with confidence - your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics!
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
One of the most striking characteristics of mathematics is that thoughtful and persistent mathematical analysis often provokes totally unexpected insights into what may at first have looked like an uninteresting or intractable problem. This book gives students an opportunity to discover the nature and process of mathematics by developing their ability to investigate problems without relying on the standardized methods usually taught. The techniques required are elementary, allowing the student to concentrate on the way the material is explored and developed, and on the strategies for addressing questions whose answers are not immediately obvious. The book will challenge high school and college mathematics students as well as interested general readers.
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| Customer Reviews:
A good primer of basic mathematical puzzles, solutions provided July 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mathematics is the act of investigating what happens when you set down a set of objects, a set of rules on what you can do with the objects and then do things following those rules. Sometimes we put forward educated guesses as to what our result will be and at other times we simply just do what we can do to see what happens.
Discovering mathematics is nothing more than doing these things and in this book, Gardiner starts with some simple games that are easy to analyze. In the next section, a generalized three-digit number is selected, the three digits reversed and the process is repeated. List of self-referential sentences such as
"This sentence uses thirty symbols."
are analyzed next. Further topics involve geometric figures, an extensive section involving more flipping of the digits in the positions of a number, simple recurrence relations, classic jug and postage stamp problems, solving linear equations and coinage problems. Large numbers of additional exercises are given at the end of the chapters and hints followed by solutions are also included.
This book should be considered more a primer on mathematics than a book on mathematics. The problems are more in the area of mathematically based puzzles rather than what we would consider "pure" math problems. Nevertheless, it is a good source of quick problems for classes in mathematics for education majors or classes in algebra near or at the level of precalculus.
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