Wow! This is a powerful book that addresses a long-standing elephant in the mathematics room. Many people learning math ask ``Why is math so hard for me while everyone else understands it?'' and ``Am I good enough to succeed in math?'' In answering these questions the book shares personal stories from many now-accomplished mathematicians affirming that ``You are not alone; math is hard for everyone'' and ``Yes; you are good enough.'' Along the way the book addresses other issues such as biases and prejudices that mathematicians encounter, and it provides inspiration and emotional support for mathematicians ranging from the experienced professor to the struggling mathematics student. --Michael Dorff, MAA President This book is a remarkable collection of personal reflections on what it means to be, and to become, a mathematician. Each story reveals a unique and refreshing understanding of the barriers erected by our cultural focus on ``math is hard.'' Indeed, mathematics is hard, and so are many other things--as Stephen Kennedy points out in his cogent introduction. This collection of essays offers inspiration to students of mathematics and to mathematicians at every career stage. --Jill Pipher, AMS President This book is published in cooperation with the Mathematical Association of America.

Bedtime Math wants to change the way we introduce math to children: to make math a fun part of kids' everyday lives. We all know it's wonderful to read bedtime stories to kids, but what about doing math? Many generations of Americans are uncomfortable with math and numbers, and too often we hear the phrase, "I'm just not good at math!" For decades, this attitude has trickled down from parents to their kids, and we now have a culture that finds math dry, intimidating, and just not cool. Bedtime Math wants to change all that. Inside this book, families will find fun, mischief-making math problems to tackle—math that isn't just kid-friendly, but actually kid-appealing. With over 100 math riddles on topics from jalapeños and submarines to roller coasters and flamingos, this book bursts with math that looks nothing like school. And with three different levels of challenge (wee ones, little kids, and big kids), there's something for everyone. We can make numbers fun, and change the world, one Bedtime Math puzzle at a time.

A brilliant tour of mathematical thought and a guide to becoming a better thinker, How Not to Be Wrong shows that math is not just a long list of rules to be learned and carried out by rote. Math touches everything we do; It's what makes the world make sense. Using the mathematician's methods and hard-won insights-minus the jargon-professor and popular columnist Jordan Ellenberg guides general readers through his ideas with rigor and lively irreverence, infusing everything from election results to baseball to the existence of God and the psychology of slime molds with a heightened sense of clarity and wonder. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see the hidden structures beneath the messy and chaotic surface of our daily lives. How Not to Be Wrong shows us how--Publisher's description.

In this introduction to polygons, a triangle convinces a shapeshifter to make him a quadrilateral and later a pentagon, but discovers that where angles and sides are concerned, more isn't always better.

This second edition of the popular math teaching resource book Math Stories for Problem Solving Success offers updated true-to-life situations designed to motivate teenagers to use math skills for solving everyday problems. The book features intriguing short stories followed by sets of problems related to the stories that are correlated to the standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Each of the easy-to-read stories is followed by three increasingly difficult groups of problem sets. This makes it simple for teachers to select the appropriate problem set for students of different abilities and at different grade levels. To further enhance student involvement, the stories feature recurring characters and can be used either sequentially or out of order. The problems in the book cover many basic math topics, including decimals, fractions, and percents; measurement; geometry; data, statistics, and probability; algebra; and problem solving. In addition to having all the answers, an Answer Key at the end of the book offers explanations and background information about the problems that can be helpful to both teachers and students. Math Stories for Problem Solving Success will help you show students that math is something they are already using every day.

Playing with Math: Stories from Math Circles, Homeschoolers, and Passionate Teachers brings together the stories of over thirty authors who share their math enthusiasm with their communities, families, or students. After every chapter is a puzzle, game, or activity to get you and your kids playing with math too. MATH CIRCLES: Julia and Maria conduct math circles with young children. Jamylle creates a math circle for African American middle-school students. Bob and Ellen take their math circle into a prison. Colleen discovers the power of games at her after-school math center. Sue opens her home up for families to play with math. Nancy creates a math festival. HOMESCHOOLERS: Julie learns from her kids how differently each child learns math. Jimmie hesitantly dips her toe in the water, and moves her daughter toward a living math approach. Tiff, the math hater, discovers beauty in math. PASSIONATE TEACHERS: Michelle teaches math with the help of three-toed dinosaurs, while Friedrich gets his help from vampires. Pilar begs parents to let their kids discover mathematical truths without being shown our grown-up shortcuts too quickly. WHO'S THIS BOOK FOR? Parents, grandparents, teachers, math enthusiasts, math-haters who don't want to pass their affliction on...Everyone! Thoughtful stories, puzzles, games, and activities will give you new insights. Join us - we're playing with math!

Grade level: k, t.