"Mathematical thinking is not the same as 'doing math'--unless you are a professional mathematician. For most people, 'doing math' means the application of procedures and symbolic manipulations. Mathematical thinking, in contrast, is what the name reflects, a way of thinking about things in the world that humans have developed over three thousand years. It does not have to be about mathematics at all, which means that many people can benefit from learning this powerful way of thinking, not just mathematicians and scientists."--Back cover.

“Witty, compelling, and just plain fun to read . . ." —Evelyn Lamb, Scientific American The Freakonomics of math—a math-world superstar unveils the hidden beauty and logic of the world and puts its power in our hands The math we learn in school can seem like a dull set of rules, laid down by the ancients and not to be questioned. In How Not to Be Wrong, Jordan Ellenberg shows us how terribly limiting this view is: Math isn’t confined to abstract incidents that never occur in real life, but rather touches everything we do—the whole world is shot through with it. Math allows us to see the hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of our world. It’s a science of not being wrong, hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see through to the true meaning of information we take for granted: How early should you get to the airport? What does “public opinion” really represent? Why do tall parents have shorter children? Who really won Florida in 2000? And how likely are you, really, to develop cancer? How Not to Be Wrong presents the surprising revelations behind all of these questions and many more, using the mathematician’s method of analyzing life and exposing the hard-won insights of the academic community to the layman—minus the jargon. Ellenberg chases mathematical threads through a vast range of time and space, from the everyday to the cosmic, encountering, among other things, baseball, Reaganomics, daring lottery schemes, Voltaire, the replicability crisis in psychology, Italian Renaissance painting, artificial languages, the development of non-Euclidean geometry, the coming obesity apocalypse, Antonin Scalia’s views on crime and punishment, the psychology of slime molds, what Facebook can and can’t figure out about you, and the existence of God. Ellenberg pulls from history as well as from the latest theoretical developments to provide those not trained in math with the knowledge they need. Math, as Ellenberg says, is “an atomic-powered prosthesis that you attach to your common sense, vastly multiplying its reach and strength.” With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, more meaningful way. How Not to Be Wrong will show you how.

Thinking Mathematically is perfect for anyone who wants to develop their powers to think mathematically, whether at school, at university or just out of interest. This book is invaluable for anyone who wishes to promote mathematical thinking in others or for anyone who has always wondered what lies at the core of mathematics. Thinking Mathematically reveals the processes at the heart of mathematics and demonstrates how to encourage and develop them. Extremely practical, it involves the reader in questions so that subsequent discussions speak to immediate experience.

In the early 1980s there was virtually no serious communication among the various groups that contribute to mathematics education -- mathematicians, mathematics educators, classroom teachers, and cognitive scientists. Members of these groups came from different traditions, had different perspectives, and rarely gathered in the same place to discuss issues of common interest. Part of the problem was that there was no common ground for the discussions -- given the disparate traditions and perspectives. As one way of addressing this problem, the Sloan Foundation funded two conferences in the mid-1980s, bringing together members of the different communities in a ground clearing effort, designed to establish a base for communication. In those conferences, interdisciplinary teams reviewed major topic areas and put together distillations of what was known about them.* A more recent conference -- upon which this volume is based -- offered a forum in which various people involved in education reform would present their work, and members of the broad communities gathered would comment on it. The focus was primarily on college mathematics, informed by developments in K-12 mathematics. The main issues of the conference were mathematical thinking and problem solving.

A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.

In this country we have done a poor job of helping students come to see the wonder, beauty and power of mathematics. Standards can be brought into the picture, but unless we think about what it means to truly engage students in mathematics we will continue to be unsuccessful. The goal of this book is to begin to change the way students experience mathematics in the middle and high school classrooms. In this book you will find a theoretical basis for this approach to teaching mathematics, multiple guides and questions for teachers to think about in relation to their everyday teaching, and over 30 examples of problems, lessons, tasks, and projects that been used effectively with urban students.

Students must prove all of the theorems in this undergraduate-level text, which features extensive outlines to assist in study and comprehension. Thorough and well-written, the treatment provides sufficient material for a one-year undergraduate course. The logical presentation anticipates students' questions, and complete definitions and expositions of topics relate new concepts to previously discussed subjects. Most of the material focuses on point-set topology with the exception of the last chapter. Topics include sets and functions, infinite sets and transfinite numbers, topological spaces and basic concepts, product spaces, connectivity, and compactness. Additional subjects include separation axioms, complete spaces, and homotopy and the fundamental group. Numerous hints and figures illuminate the text. Dover (2014) republication of the edition originally published by The Williams & Wilkins Company, Baltimore, 1975. See every Dover book in print at www.doverpublications.com