For about the 100th time I have been reading a book of science popularization when it stops dead to explain the imaginary and complex numbers from scratch.

It's been almost 250 years since Euler's Elements of Algebra. Maybe it's time to introduce C and a complete coverage of the number system as part of a basic mathematical education in ( Read more... )

I greatly enjoyed, and benefited from, the time I spent as an undergraduate. I went to a small university which was focussed on undergraduate (B.A., B.Sc.) studies in the humane letters and core sciences. Its main distinction was not its specific programmes (although it had a few interdisciplinary areas: Environmental Studies, Native Studies, ( Read more... )

The Ontario Government is getting into a frazzle about the failure rate of public school students in mathematics, offering bonuses for teachers doing skills upgrading.  Fingers have been pointed at the teachers' math skills, thei math teaching skills, the curriculum, and other possible culprits ( Read more... )