Showing posts with label Maths Concepts (Puffin Books). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maths Concepts (Puffin Books). Show all posts

How to discover 22/7 and other rational approximations to $\pi$


A short article written for a magazine that caters to high-school students. The basic idea is to use continued fractions found using Euclid's algorithm, and then to chop off the continued fraction to get rational approximations. Written at a high-school level. Some of the material was already present in my book Maths Concepts.

Update: March 2014. This article is published in "At Right Angles." Here is a link to the published article.

Math Problem Book - Grade 6

Here is a book made from some problem sets I used to give Tejasi and her friends in my garage. The explanations have been added later on. Most of the kids who took these problem sets benefited...in the sense that they began doing well in exams. Here is a collection of the problem sets for grade 6.

Click here to download/view Math Problem Book - Grade 6

Experience Mathematics

A book I wrote long ago. Recently, I re-edited it based on comments made by Professor Dick Askey. Looking for a publisher, but meanwhile here it is for my friends and their kids...

Click here to view the PDF File

Book Review by Tejasi Bhatnagar

BOOK REVIEW: GET SMART! MATHS CONCEPTS
DAILY BARD RATING: 4.5 STARS

Maths Concepts is a book written by Dr. Gaurav Bhatnagar for classes 6th to 8th. The interesting part of this book is that it has jokes and conversations related to maths. A child who gets 60% in maths may get above 90% after reading this book. It contains interesting problems which may look easy but are difficult to solve. It even teaches the ten important ways to do well in mathematics.



FULL DISCLOSURE
Tejasi is the author's daughter. This telegraphic book review was written for a school assignment to write a newspaper (which she named THE DAILY BARD). A character named Tejasi has also featured as one of the many kids having the 'conversations' mentioned in Tejasi's review. This fact may have influenced her interest in the book.

How to buy the book

Here is a list of addresses and contracts in case you are having trouble finding the book.

Delhi: Variety Book Depot – 23412567 / Mr.John

Chennai: India Book Distributors – 044 28353173 / Vinay Anchan
Desh kumar (Penguin Rep) - 9789087712

Mumbai: Strand Mumbai - 022-22086109 / Madhu
Ketan Patel (Penguin Rep) - 9867189490

For online book store you can go to www.firstandsecond.com

Here is another online book store link.

If all else fails, please write to: customer.service@in.penguingroup.com.

Get Smart! Maths Concepts



The book Get Smart! Maths Concepts has been released by Penguin Books, India.

The book is a survey of middle school math, and covers concepts that I feel will be useful for all students to know. It may even give a quick review of things you need to know in pre-algebra and algebra, before you encounter them again in a calculus class. The emphasis is on thinking mathematically, rather than just learning the procedures to solve problems.

You can buy the book from flipkart.

Book Released


Maths Concepts has just been released. Check out:
http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/Bookdetail.aspx?bookId=7609

This blog is to answer questions if any from readers, post errata, and discuss solutions of the problems in the Do and Discuss section of the book.

Acknowledgements

From the book Get Smart! Maths Concepts, Puffin Books, India, 2008.

I acknowledge the debt I owe to Professor Richard Askey of the University of Wisconsin. Most of the topics of this book are included in a beautiful handout made by Professor Askey. The handout outlines the essential aspects of algebra and geometry that students should know before they learn the Calculus.

I would also like to thank Vatsala Kaul, Penguin’s Editor for this book. Vatsala conceptualised this book creatively, and has clarified the exposition throughout this book. Further, I thank Shubhank Bhadauria and Tarun Sachdeva for creating the graphics in this book.

I thank the following people who are an integral part of my life, and who have encouraged me in one way or the other during the writing of this book: My school friends—Hartosh Singh Bal, Punya Mishra, Poonam Madan, Gaurav Suri, and Vikram Jamalabad. My colleagues— Jagdish Prakash, Shantanu Prakash, Abhinav Dhar, Sangeeta Gulati, and Meena Raju. And my family—Hem Bhatnagar, S. S. Bhatnagar, Saurabh Kumar, Amit Bhatnagar, Jayshree Bhalerao, and Priti Kumar.
Last but not the least, I wish to thank my daughter Tejasi. It is because of Tejasi and her friends that I rediscovered the joy of doing mathematics at the primary and middle school level.

Contents

    What this Book is About
  1. What is Counting?
  2. Addition and Subtraction
  3. Multiplication and Areas
  4. Division
  5. Divisors and Multiples
  6. Prime Factorization
  7. Addition and Subtraction of Fractions
  8. GCD and LCM
  9. Integers
  10. Rational Numbers
  11. Decimals and Measurement
  12. Linear Equations
  13. Symbols and Their Algebra
  14. Division of Polynomials
  15. Basic Constructs of Geometry
  16. Congruent Triangles
  17. Parallel Lines
  18. Area and Perimeter
  19. Pythagoras Theorem
  20. Coordinate Geometry
  21. The Square Root of 2
  22. How to Study Math
    164 Pages

Dedication

Dedicated to Mrs. Asha Sarin and the late Mr. I.S. Chawla, two amazing math teachers, who got me hooked to math in the late 70s and early 80s in Modern School, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi.

Prize for students


In case you read (even parts of) the book, interact with me, suggest this book to your friends and teachers, ask me really good questions, and in general take part in useful discussions on this page...

And you are a student... studying anywhere in grades 6-12th...I will award free subscriptions to mathguru.com (and maybe more websites).

So do feel free to interact here.

Errata

Here is a list of errata that have crept into the book due to one reason or the other. I'm sorry, and I hope this errata sheet will help you learn from the book without too many problems. 

Here is the errata (Last updated October 9, 2010):

Errata for Get Smart! Maths Concepts, by Gaurav Bhatnagar

If you find more errors in the book that are not mentioned in the errata list, please do leave a comment on this site. 


Post solutions/answers here

If you wan't to discuss the answers to the problems in the DO AND DISCUSS section, this is the place to do so. Submit answers by adding a comment here, or send me email at gaurav.bhatnagar at mathguru dot com.