Spring 2010
MATH 029 · Prealgebra
MATH 151 · Plane Trigonometry
MATH 130DE · Elementary Alegebra
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS
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My Office: MA116
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Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these one is wandering in a dark labyrinth.
~ Galileo Galilei, Il saggiatore (The Assayer), 1623.
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The fact is that there are few more "popular" subjects than mathematics. Most people have some appreciation of mathematics, just as most people can enjoy a pleasant tune; and there are probably more people really interested in mathematics than in music. Appearances may suggest the contrary, but there are easy explanations. Music can be used to stimulate mass emotion, while mathematics cannot; and musical incapacity is recognized (no doubt rightly) as mildly discreditable, whereas most people are so frightened of the name of mathematics that they are ready, quite unaffectedly, to exaggerate their own mathematical stupidity.
A Mathematician's Apology (London 1941).~ G.H. Hardy |
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Unfortunately what is little recognized is that the most worthwhile scientific books are those in which the author clearly indicates what he does not know; for an author most hurts his readers by concealing difficulties.
~ Everiste Galois, quoted in N Rose, Mathematical Maxims and Minims (Raleigh NC 1988). |
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Cogito Ergo Sum. "I think, therefore I am."
~ René Descartes, Discours de la Méthode |