Yeah, we’re busy, but this one has been bugging us. It is an exercise and solution from Cambridge Specialist Mathematics 3&4. It’s basically a PoSWW, or we could simply let it pass as a textbook glitch. But we think there’s more than the obvious to say.
Tag: textbooks
Yet More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes
Same as last time, and last last time. This pile is mostly graduate texts, with quite a few classics, but there are also some excellent undergraduate texts, and some oddballs.
Please comment below or email me if you have any interest in any of the books or if you have any questions. Quickly. I’m happy to consider meeting up here or there in Melbourne, but I definitely won’t be mailing any books this time. I’m tired of people not saying thanks.
Continue reading “Yet More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes”
Governor DeSantis’s Critical Race Theory and the Rejection of Mathematics Texts
Last week, the big, crazy news out of big, crazy America was the Florida Department of Education’s decision to reject 54 school mathematics texts. The reasons? Well, supposedly the rejected texts
included references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics.
The claim was immediately undermined, however, by the FDOE’s declining to provide any such references, or to even identify the rejected texts. Continue reading “Governor DeSantis’s Critical Race Theory and the Rejection of Mathematics Texts”
More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes
UPDATE (25/11/21)
OK, all done. Thanks to those who expressed interest, and thanks in particular to MyCool, for playing the role of sweeper. Books will be handballed as arranged.
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Or the same homes. I couldn’t care less.
This pile of books is not nearly as extensive or as high quality as the last bunch, and I’m not going to work hard to find homes, or to deliver the books to the homes. Still there are some good books there for undergraduate maths and engineering folk, and a few classics. Continue reading “More Mathematics Books, Free to More Homes”
PoSWW 20: Unconventional Wisdom
This one comes courtesy of frequent commenter, John Friend. It is an example from Cambridge’s Mathematical Methods 34.
UPDATE (19/08/21)
It amazes me at times what does and does not concern some commenters. That’s not intended as a criticism. Well, it is, but it isn’t. And, it is. It’s complicated.
WitCH 63: A Separate Reality
The following comes courtesy of frequent commenter, John Friend. It is an exercise and solution fromĀ Cambridge Specialist Mathematics 3&4.
PoSWW 17: Blessed are the Cheesemakers
This one is old, which is not in keeping with the spirit of our PoSWWs and WitCHes. And, we’ve already written on it and talked about it. But, as the GOAT PoSWW, it really deserves its own post. It is an exercise from the textbook Heinemann Maths Zone 9 (2011), which does not appear to still exist. (And yes, the accompanying photo appeared alongside the question in the text book.)
WitCH 59: Stretching the Truth
This double-barrelled WitCH comes from Maths Quest Mathematical Methods 11Ā (top). and Cambridge Mathematical Methods 1 & 2Ā (bottom). It is the final in our series of Quest-bashing, at least for now.
WitCH 58: Differently Abled
Like the previous post, this one comes from Maths Quest Mathematical Methods 11, and is most definitely a WitCH. It can also been seen as a “contrast and compare” with WitCH 15.
Subsection 13.2.5, below, is on “differentiability”. The earlier part of chapter 13 gives a potted, and not error-free, introduction to limits and continuity, and Chapter 12 covers the “first principles” (limit) computation of polynomial derivatives. We’ve included the relevant “worked example”, and the relevant exercises and answers.
WitCH 57: Tunnel Vision
The following is just a dumb exercise, and so is probably more of a PoSWW. It seems so lemmingly stupid, however, that it comes around full cycle to be a WitCH. It is an exercise from Maths Quest Mathematical Methods 11. The exercise appears in a pre-calculus, CAS-permitted chapter, Cubic Polynomials. The suggested answers are (a) , and (b) 81/32 km.