Common Sense Mathematics: Second Edition


Book Description

Ten years from now, what do you want or expect your students to remember from your course? We realized that in ten years what matters will be how students approach a problem using the tools they carry with them—common sense and common knowledge—not the particular mathematics we chose for the curriculum. Using our text, students work regularly with real data in moderately complex everyday contexts, using mathematics as a tool and common sense as a guide. The focus is on problems suggested by the news of the day and topics that matter to students, like inflation, credit card debt, and loans. We use search engines, calculators, and spreadsheet programs as tools to reduce drudgery, explore patterns, and get information. Technology is an integral part of today's world—this text helps students use it thoughtfully and wisely. This second edition contains revised chapters and additional sections, updated examples and exercises, and complete rewrites of critical material based on feedback from students and teachers who have used this text. Our focus remains the same: to help students to think carefully—and critically—about numerical information in everyday contexts.




The Common Sense of Teaching Mathematics


Book Description

"Since knowing produces knowledge, and not the other way around, this book shows how everyone can be a producer rather than a consumer of mathematical knowledge. Mathematics can be owned as a means of mathematizing the universe, just as the power of verbalizing molds itself to all the manifold demands of experience." C. Gattegno




Mathematics & Common Sense


Book Description

From the Preface: This book is addressed to all who are curious about the nature of mathematics and its role in society. It is neither a text book nor a specialists' book. It consists of a number of loosely linked essays that may be read independently and for which I have tried to provide a leitmotif by throwing light on the relationship between mathematics and common sense. In these essays I hope to foster a critical attitude towards both the existence of common sense in mathematics and the ambiguous role that it can play.




Entropy Demystified: The Second Law Reduced To Plain Common Sense


Book Description

In this unique book, Arieh Ben-Naim invites the reader to experience the joy of appreciating something which has eluded understanding for many years — entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.The book has a two-pronged message: first, that the Second Law is not “infinitely incomprehensible” as commonly stated in textbooks of thermodynamics but can, in fact, be comprehended through sheer common sense; and second, that entropy is not a mysterious quantity that has “resisted understanding” but a simple, familiar and easily comprehensible concept.Written in an accessible style, the book guides the reader through an abundance of dice games and examples from everyday life. The author paves the way for readers to discover for themselves what entropy is, how it changes, and most importantly, why it always changes in one direction in a spontaneous process.




A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition


Book Description

Algorithms and data structures are much more than abstract concepts. Mastering them enables you to write code that runs faster and more efficiently, which is particularly important for today’s web and mobile apps. Take a practical approach to data structures and algorithms, with techniques and real-world scenarios that you can use in your daily production code, with examples in JavaScript, Python, and Ruby. This new and revised second edition features new chapters on recursion, dynamic programming, and using Big O in your daily work. Use Big O notation to measure and articulate the efficiency of your code, and modify your algorithm to make it faster. Find out how your choice of arrays, linked lists, and hash tables can dramatically affect the code you write. Use recursion to solve tricky problems and create algorithms that run exponentially faster than the alternatives. Dig into advanced data structures such as binary trees and graphs to help scale specialized applications such as social networks and mapping software. You’ll even encounter a single keyword that can give your code a turbo boost. Practice your new skills with exercises in every chapter, along with detailed solutions. Use these techniques today to make your code faster and more scalable.




Yearning for the Impossible


Book Description

Yearning for the Impossible: The Surprising Truth of Mathematics, Second Edition explores the history of mathematics from the perspective of the creative tension between common sense and the "impossible" as the author follows the discovery or invention of new concepts that have marked mathematical progress. The author puts these creations into a broader context involving related "impossibilities" from art, literature, philosophy, and physics. This new edition contains many new exercises and commentaries, clearly discussing a wide range of challenging subjects.




The Mathematics of Infinity


Book Description

Praise for the First Edition ". . . an enchanting book for those people in computer science or mathematics who are fascinated by the concept of infinity."—Computing Reviews ". . . a very well written introduction to set theory . . . easy to read and well suited for self-study . . . highly recommended."—Choice The concept of infinity has fascinated and confused mankind for centuries with theories and ideas that cause even seasoned mathematicians to wonder. The Mathematics of Infinity: A Guide to Great Ideas, Second Edition uniquely explores how we can manipulate these ideas when our common sense rebels at the conclusions we are drawing. Continuing to draw from his extensive work on the subject, the author provides a user-friendly presentation that avoids unnecessary, in-depth mathematical rigor. This Second Edition provides important coverage of logic and sets, elements and predicates, cardinals as ordinals, and mathematical physics. Classic arguments and illustrative examples are provided throughout the book and are accompanied by a gradual progression of sophisticated notions designed to stun readers' intuitive view of the world. With an accessible and balanced treatment of both concepts and theory, the book focuses on the following topics: Logic, sets, and functions Prime numbers Counting infinite sets Well ordered sets Infinite cardinals Logic and meta-mathematics Inductions and numbers Presenting an intriguing account of the notions of infinity, The Mathematics of Infinity: A Guide to Great Ideas, Second Edition is an insightful supplement for mathematics courses on set theory at the undergraduate level. The book also serves as a fascinating reference for mathematically inclined individuals who are interested in learning about the world of counterintuitive mathematics.




Rethinking Mathematics


Book Description

In this unique collection, more than 30 articles show how to weave social justice issues throughout the mathematics curriculum, as well as how to integrate mathematics into other curricular areas. Rethinking Mathematics offers teaching ideas, lesson plans, and reflections by practitioners and mathematics educators. This is real-world math-math that helps students analyze problems as they gain essential academic skills. This book offers hope and guidance for teachers to enliven and strengthen their math teaching. It will deepen students' understanding of society and help prepare them to be critical, active participants in a democracy. Blending theory and practice, this is the only resource of its kind.




The Common Sense of Teaching Foreign Languages


Book Description

Gattegno wrote this book as a scientist interested in learning processes, as a student interested in the mastery of foreign languages, and as a teacher interested in providing his students with ideal learning conditions. These perspectives combined with years of research, travel, and fieldwork create a full insight into the problem of learning a foreign language. He argues that learning a language should not be about recitation and memorization, but about the natural learning processes we have used since birth. "In fact," he writes, "We can no more say that we remember our language than that we remember how to stand up or walk."




Sensible Mathematics


Book Description

Intervention: providing effective support services.