Through hard experience mathematicians have learned to subject even the most 'evident' assertions to rigorous scrutiny, as intuition and facile reasoning can often be misleading. However, errors can slip past the most watchful eye, they are often subtle and difficult to detect; but when found they can teach us a lot and can present a real challenge to straighten out. This book collects together a mass of such errors, drawn from the work of students, textbooks, and the media, as well as from professional mathematicians themselves. Each of these items is carefully analysed and the source of the...

This book is a country walk through the magical world of numbers. Most people will have recognised some of the fascinating patterns exhibited by many numbers; some of these indicate a deep and complex structure which is revealed in this book in a way that is accessible to all, from amateur to expert. The author focusses on powers of numbers, which have been studied from the time of Pythagoras until the present day, with the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Indeed some of the results described by the author were only established quite recently, giving the book a very contemporary flavour. In...

In the mid 1980s, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) inaugurated a series of studies in mathematics education by comm- sioning one on the influence of technology and informatics on mathematics and its teaching. These studies are designed to thoroughly explore topics of c- temporary interest, by gathering together a group of experts who prepare a Study Volume that provides a considered assessment of the current state and a guide to further developments. Studies have embraced a range of issues, some central, such as the teaching of algebra, some closely related,...

Pell's equation is an important topic of algebraic number theory that involves quadratic forms and the structure of rings of integers in algebraic number fields. The history of this equation is long and circuitous, and involved a number of different approaches before a definitive theory was found. There were partial patterns and quite effective methods of finding solutions, but a complete theory did not emerge until the end of the eighteenth century. The topic is motivated and developed through sections of exercises which allow the student to recreate known theory and provide a focus for...

This text records the problems given for the first 15 annual undergraduate mathematics competitions, held in March each year since 2001 at the University of Toronto. Problems cover areas of single-variable differential and integral calculus, linear algebra, advanced algebra, analytic geometry, combinatorics, basic group theory, and number theory. The problems of the competitions are given in chronological order as presented to the students. The solutions appear in subsequent chapters according to subject matter. Appendices recall some background material and list the names of students who did...