This weekend the cool, competitive side of math was on display at the hallowed math grounds of Princeton University. I'm talking about PUMaC, the Princeton University Math Competition. For those readers who know this blog to be written by an English teacher, education analyst, culture writer and pop culture fan, it might be odd to find this post about competitive math. But I am also the father of a mathlete who is a Princeton alum who was on the New Jersey campus yesterday to help college kids geek out on competitive math.
That got the librarian in me thinking about books which have enabled me to connect with math and the wild word of competitive problem solving that has captivated my son for most of his life from the time he was a national competitor in MathCounts.
One of the first books that helped me re-engage with the subject that wasn't my favorite in middle school when the worlds of numbers and letters first collided in this thing called algebra has the appealing title How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking. It's a fascinating study of real world applications from writer Jordan Ellenberg.
No comments:
Post a Comment