Math Wonders (Bookzcity)

Further Details About This Book:

This book was inspired by the extraordinary response to an Op-Ed article
I wrote for The New York Times.∗ In that article, I called for the need
to convince people of the beauty of mathematics and not necessarily its
usefulness, as is most often the case when trying to motivate youngsters
to the subject. I used the year number, 2,002,∗∗ to motivate the reader
by mentioning that it is a palindrome and then proceeded to show some
entertaining aspects of a palindromic number. I could have taken it even
further by having the reader take products of the number 2,002, for that,
too, reveals some beautiful relationships (or quirks) of our number system.
For example, look at some selected products of 2,002.

This brings me to another thought. Not only is it obvious that the topic
and level must be appropriate for the intended audience, but the teacher’s
enthusiasm for the topic and the manner in which it is presented are
equally important. In most cases, the units will be sufficient for your
students. However, there will be some students who will require a more
in-depth treatment of a topic. To facilitate this, references for further information
on many of the units are provided (usually as footnotes).