Guided practice and activity pages help students formulate complete answers to real-life problems involving logical reasoning, pre-algebra, decimals, percentages, basic geometry, graphs, and statistics.

Mathematics in the Real World is a self-contained, accessible introduction to the world of mathematics for non-technical majors. With a focus on everyday applications and context, the topics in this textbook build in difficulty and are presented sequentially, starting with a brief review of sets and numbers followed by an introduction to elementary statistics, models, and graph theory. Data and identification numbers are then covered, providing the pathway to voting and finance. Each subject is covered in a concise and clear fashion through the use of real-world applications and the introduction of relevant terminology. Many sample problems – both writing exercises and multiple-choice questions – are included to help develop students’ level of understanding and to offer a variety of options to instructors. Covering six major units and outlining a one-semester course, Mathematics in the Real World is aimed at undergraduate liberal art students fulfilling the mathematics requirement in their degree program. This introductory text will be an excellent resource for such courses, and will show students where mathematics arises in their everyday lives.

In this accessible and illuminating study of how the science of mathematics developed, a veteran math researcher and educator looks at the ways in which our evolutionary makeup is both a help and a hindrance to the study of math. Artstein chronicles the discovery of important mathematical connections between mathematics and the real world from ancient times to the present. The author then describes some of the contemporary applications of mathematics—in probability theory, in the study of human behavior, and in combination with computers, which give mathematics unprecedented power. The author concludes with an insightful discussion of why mathematics, for most people, is so frustrating. He argues that the rigorous logical structure of math goes against the grain of our predisposed ways of thinking as shaped by evolution, presumably because the talent needed to cope with logical mathematics gave the human race as a whole no evolutionary advantage. With this in mind, he offers ways to overcome these innate impediments in the teaching of math.

A guide outlining how math is used in everyday situations such as banking, using credit, and buying a car. Offers tips on ways to avoid problems with money.

In this vibrant work, which is ideal for both teaching and learning, Apoorva Khare and Anna Lachowska explain the mathematics essential for understanding and appreciating our quantitative world. They show with examples that mathematics is a key tool in the creation and appreciation of art, music, and literature, not just science and technology. The book covers basic mathematical topics from logarithms to statistics, but the authors eschew mundane finance and probability problems. Instead, they explain how modular arithmetic helps keep our online transactions safe, how logarithms justify the twelve-tone scale commonly used in music, and how transmissions by deep space probes are similar to knights serving as messengers for their traveling prince. Ideal for coursework in introductory mathematics and requiring no knowledge of calculus, Khare and Lachowska's enlightening mathematics tour will appeal to a wide audience.

Algebra is often taught in an abstract manner with little or no emphasis on what algebra is or how it can be used to solve real problems. Just as English can be translated into other languages, word problems can be "translated" into the math language of algebra and easily solved. Real World Algebra explains this process in an easy to understand format using cartoons and drawings. This makes self-learning easy for both the student and any teacher who never did quite understand algebra. Solutions included. Includes chapters on the language of algebra, geometry and algebra, proportions and algebra, physics, levers, the Pythagorean Theorem, percents and algebra, simultaneous equations, and algebra and money.--publisher's website.