Joy of Doing Math

Kazunori KIKUCHI (Graduate School of Science)

Objective
  Mathematics is not only a school subject but also a set of wonderful ideas on numbers, shapes and motions. Such ideas help people think fundamentally about things both in academic studies and in daily lives. And using such ideas, or doing math, is great fun for almost all people, even if they are not good at math at school. The purpose of this course is to help students understand mathematical ideas, use them and enjoy doing math. The selected topics are elementary, but the included ideas are useful at any level in any academic study. This course introduces students of any major to the joy of doing math.

Textbooks
  No particular textbooks are used; materials will be provided at each class.

Lecture Outline
   1. Introduction
   2. Secrets in times tables
   3. Quizzes about decimals
   4. Games with fingers
   5. Puzzles of logic
   6. Riddles and visualization
   7. Measuring areas on a sphere
   8. Measuring the volume of a cone
   9. Calculating pi with needles
   10. Counting the number of a set
   11. Arithmetic in calendars
   12. Algebra in music
   13. Analysis of vowels
   14. Geometry with origami
   15. Summary
   (The content and the order may be changed in part.)

Grading
  Class participation 20%
  Essays 40%
  Term paper 40%