scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1253591

Publication date 23 February 1999

algebra calculus college problem-solving course combinatorics number theory

Problem books (00A07) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to combinatorics (05-01) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to number theory (11-01) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to real functions (26-01)

Review text

The book is intended to serve as a text for a lower division college problem-solving course. It includes the following chapters: Strategies for investigating problems, Fundamental tactics for solving problems, Three important crossover tactics, Algebra, Combinatorics, Number theory, and Calculus. The author himself has grown up from a ``professional high school mathematics competitions contestant to a well-known problem solving teacher and organizer of mathematics competitions on the highest level. It is a well-written book, which includes all popular topic areas for such a book with an evident exception of geometry. A short bibliography of the book is completely devoid of any other problem solving books. Is it the choice of the author, who states (p. x) ``I decided to write this book because I could not find any suitable text that worked for my students? Or is it Wiley's desire to deny any publicity to its competition? Either way, in this regard the book stands in contrast with the recent \textit{Anthony Gardiner}'s book ``British Mathematical Olympiads (Oxford Univ. Press 1997; Zbl 0884.00003) which contained a well selected and well annotated ten-page bibliography of books for further reading. Some parts of the book appear to this reviewer too close to the reviewer's books ``Mathematics as Problem Solving (MPS) (1987; Zbl 0667.00001) and ``Colorado Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) (1994; Zbl 0812.00002). Section 3.3 of the book, Pigeonhole Principle, is especially ``problematic: out of its 27 problems, problems 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 18, 24, 26, 27 (or their closest versions), most with their solutions, have appeared in MPS and/or CMO. It is desirable not to borrow too heavily from the existing books. It is imperative to always give credit in the text and in the bibliography to the books whose problems and solutions have been used (just one credit to the reviewer and one to Colorado Mathematical Olympiad appear in the text). There are some other problems in common between the book under review and MPS. For example, the book opens with a motivational problem 1.1.3, which was just that in the reviewer's 1987 book MPS: the opening motivational problem 1.1.1. Nevertheless, this is a fine first edition of the fine first book of the author. It will find its grateful readers, and, as the author hopes, will ``spread the gospel of problem solving.

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