Challenge & Thrill Of Pre-college Mathematics

About the Book

Challenge and Thrill of Pre-College Mathematics is an unusual enrichment text for Mathematics of Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 for use by students and teachers who are not content with the average level that routine text dare not transcend in view of their mass clientele. It covers Geometry, Algebra and Trigonometry plus a little of Combinatorics. Number Theory and Probability. It is written specifically for the top half whose ambition is to excel and rise to the peak without finding the journey a forced uphill task.

The undercurrent of the book is to motivate the student to enjoy the pleasures of a mathematical pursuit and of problem solving. More than 300 worked out problems (several of them from national and international Olympiads) share with the student the strategy, the excitement, motivation, modeling, manipulation, abstraction, notation and ingenuity that together make mathematics. This would be the starting point for the student, of a life-long friendship with a sound mathematical way of thinking.

There are two reasons why the book should be in the hands of every school or college student, (whether he belongs to a Mathematics stream or not) one, if he likes mathematics and, two, if he does not like mathematics- the former, so that the cramped robot-type treatment in the classroom does not make him into the latter; and the latter so that by the time he is halfway through the book, he will invite himself into the former.

About the Author

Dr. V. Krishnamurthy (formerly Professor of Mathematics and Dy. Director BITS Pilani, Rajasthan) is Director, K.K. Birla Academy, New Delhi. He is the author of The Culture, Excitement and Relevance of Mathematics, Combinetorics - Theory and Applications, The Clock of the Night Sky (under preparation) and a co-author of Introduction to Linear Algebra.

Book Contents

Number Systems
Arithmetic of Integers
Geometry-Straight Lines and Triangles
Geometry-Circles
Quadratic Equations and Expressions
Trigonometry
Co- ordinate Geometry of Straight Lines and Circles
Systems of Linear Equations
Permutations and Combinations
Factorisation of Polynomials
Inequalities
Elementary Combinatorics
Beginning of Probability Theory
Beginnings of Number Theory
Finite Series
De Moivres Theorem and Its Applications
Miscellaneous Problems
Answers (to selected Questions)
Index (of technical terms).