Today I embark on a month long exploration of problem solving and mathematics as part of my senior project. One facet of my senior project is the creation of a blog to track my journey and hopefully provide some inspiration and insight into the complex world of problem solving to those who read this blog.
"But Andrew...I'm only a (freshman/sophomore/junior/senior) and I haven't even taken calculus yet! Will this blog be too advanced for me?"
Not at all! The example problems I will work through on this blog will have no mathematics requisites, except perhaps a curiosity for mathematics. Believe it or not, there are many fields of mathematics tha
t are never touched upon in a typical high school mathematics sequence. Yes, there is more to math than algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and calculus! I hope to introduce you to some of these fields during my project. Instead of focusing on specific problems in one particular field of mathematics, however, I hope to introduce problem solving techniques and processees (often referred to as heuristics). Heuristics is useful beyond mathematics, as we are constantly confronted with new problems that must be solved.
In case you have no idea who I am....here's a short background:
I'm Andrew Stevenson, a senior at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. I love math (in case you hadn't figured that out by now) and I chose to spend my Senior Project month exploring problem solving topics and dipping my feet in some interesting fields of math (number theory, combinatorics, etc.) during my senior project.
I chose to explore mathematics because ever since Ipicked up George Polya's classic, How To Solve It, I became fascinated in heuristics and the problem solving aspects of mathematics. Furthermore, I feel like in math class at school I have become competent in applying various formulae to solve specific problems, but am still unsure of how to approach problems in which the solution is not immediately evident. I hope to remedy this gap somewhat during my project, hopefully preparing me for a life of problem solving and college level math courses.
I hope you will join me in my mathematical endeavors over the next month. I plan on posting a new entry three times a week. If you have any feedback/comments/questions, feel free to email me or comment below.
-Andrew
"But Andrew...I'm only a (freshman/sophomore/junior/senior) and I haven't even taken calculus yet! Will this blog be too advanced for me?"
Not at all! The example problems I will work through on this blog will have no mathematics requisites, except perhaps a curiosity for mathematics. Believe it or not, there are many fields of mathematics tha
t are never touched upon in a typical high school mathematics sequence. Yes, there is more to math than algebra, trigonometry, geometry, and calculus! I hope to introduce you to some of these fields during my project. Instead of focusing on specific problems in one particular field of mathematics, however, I hope to introduce problem solving techniques and processees (often referred to as heuristics). Heuristics is useful beyond mathematics, as we are constantly confronted with new problems that must be solved.In case you have no idea who I am....here's a short background:
I'm Andrew Stevenson, a senior at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. I love math (in case you hadn't figured that out by now) and I chose to spend my Senior Project month exploring problem solving topics and dipping my feet in some interesting fields of math (number theory, combinatorics, etc.) during my senior project.
I chose to explore mathematics because ever since Ipicked up George Polya's classic, How To Solve It, I became fascinated in heuristics and the problem solving aspects of mathematics. Furthermore, I feel like in math class at school I have become competent in applying various formulae to solve specific problems, but am still unsure of how to approach problems in which the solution is not immediately evident. I hope to remedy this gap somewhat during my project, hopefully preparing me for a life of problem solving and college level math courses.
I hope you will join me in my mathematical endeavors over the next month. I plan on posting a new entry three times a week. If you have any feedback/comments/questions, feel free to email me or comment below.
-Andrew
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