THAWOM

he problem with most mathematics textbooks is that they don't teach much mathematics. They teach you how to apply some procedures and formulas, but that's not what mathematicians do; that's what computers do. In a world where you can look up any formula in seconds, and computers can be programmed to apply them, we don't need people who have memorised how to solve a bunch of problems; we need people who can tackle problems that no-one has solved before, problems that require creativity and cunning. That's what mathematics is about. That's what this book is about... I'm not claiming that discovery is the most efficient way to learn how to apply a formula though. If I ask you to figure out how to find the area of a triangle, it isn't because that will make you better at calculating areas of triangles; it's to give you practice in mathematical problem solving. If you just want to know the formula you can skip over the discovery questions entirely. Any important conclusions will be written..