MSRI Mathematical Circles Library
Volume: 14;
2014;
376 pp;
Softcover
MSC: Primary 00;
Print ISBN: 978-0-8218-4912-5
Product Code: MCL/14
List Price: $25.00
Individual Price: $18.75
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Supplemental Materials
A Decade of the Berkeley Math Circle: The American Experience, Volume II
Share this pageEdited by Zvezdelina Stankova; Tom Rike
A co-publication of the AMS and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute
Many mathematicians have been drawn to
mathematics through their experience with math circles. The Berkeley
Math Circle (BMC) started in 1998 as one of the very first math
circles in the U.S. Over the last decade and a half, 100
instructors—university professors, business tycoons, high school
teachers, and more—have shared their passion for mathematics by
delivering over 800 BMC sessions on the UC Berkeley campus every week
during the school year.
This second volume of the book series is based on a dozen of these
sessions, encompassing a variety of enticing and stimulating
mathematical topics, some new and some continuing from Volume I:
- from dismantling Rubik's Cube and randomly putting it back together to solving it with the power of group theory;
- from raising knot-eating machines and letting Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot to breaking through knot theory via the Jones polynomial;
- from entering a seemingly hopeless infinite raffle to becoming friendly with multiplicative functions in the land of Dirichlet, Möbius, and Euler;
- from leading an army of jumping fleas in an old problem from the International Mathematical Olympiads to improving our own essay-writing strategies;
- from searching for optimal paths on a hot summer day to questioning whether Archimedes was on his way to discovering trigonometry 2000 years ago
Do some of these scenarios sound bizarre, having never before been associated with mathematics? Mathematicians love having fun while doing serious mathematics and that love is what this book intends to share with the reader. Whether at a beginner, an intermediate, or an advanced level, anyone can find a place here to be provoked to think deeply and to be inspired to create.
In the interest of fostering a greater awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and everyday life, MSRI and the AMS are publishing books in the Mathematical Circles Library series as a service to young people, their parents and teachers, and the mathematics profession.
Titles in this series are co-published with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).
Readership
High school students and their parents and teachers and undergraduate students interested in math circles.
Table of Contents
A Decade of the Berkeley Math Circle: The American Experience, Volume II