Advanced Mathematical Thinking

This book is the first major study of advanced mathematical thinking as performed by mathematicians and taught to students in senior high school and university. Topics covered include the psychology of advanced mathematical thinking, the processes involved, mathematical creativity, proof, the role of definitions, symbols, and reflective abstraction. It is highly appropriate for the college professor in mathematics or the general mathematics educator.

This is Volume 7, Issue 1 2005, a Special Issue of 'Mathematical Thinking and Learning' which looks at Advanced Mathematical Thinking. Opening with a brief history of attempts to characterize advanced mathematical thinking, beginning with the deliberations of the Advanced Mathematical Thinking Working Group of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education. The articles follow the recurring themes: (a) the distinction between identifying kinds of thinking that might be regarded as advanced at any grade level and taking as advanced any thinking about mathematical topics considered advanced; (b) the utility of characterizing such thinking for integrating the entire curriculum; (c) general tests, or criteria, for identifying advanced mathematical thinking; and (d) an emphasis on advancing mathematical practices.

This 1990 book is aimed at teachers, mathematics educators and general readers who are interested in mathematics education from a psychological point of view.

"Mathematical thinking is not the same as 'doing math'--unless you are a professional mathematician. For most people, 'doing math' means the application of procedures and symbolic manipulations. Mathematical thinking, in contrast, is what the name reflects, a way of thinking about things in the world that humans have developed over three thousand years. It does not have to be about mathematics at all, which means that many people can benefit from learning this powerful way of thinking, not just mathematicians and scientists."--Back cover.

Compilation of the research produced by the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME) since its creation in 1976. The first three sections summarize cognitively-oriented research on learning and teaching specific content areas, transversal areas, and based on technology-rich environments. The fourth section is devoted to the research on social, affective, cultural and cognitive aspects of mathematics education. The fifth section includes two chapters summarizing the PME research on teacher training and professional life of mathematics teachers.

An authorised reissue of the long out of print classic textbook, Advanced Calculus by the late Dr Lynn Loomis and Dr Shlomo Sternberg both of Harvard University has been a revered but hard to find textbook for the advanced calculus course for decades. This book is based on an honors course in advanced calculus that the authors gave in the 1960's. The foundational material, presented in the unstarred sections of Chapters 1 through 11, was normally covered, but different applications of this basic material were stressed from year to year, and the book therefore contains more material than was covered in any one year. It can accordingly be used (with omissions) as a text for a year's course in advanced calculus, or as a text for a three-semester introduction to analysis. The prerequisites are a good grounding in the calculus of one variable from a mathematically rigorous point of view, together with some acquaintance with linear algebra. The reader should be familiar with limit and continuity type arguments and have a certain amount of mathematical sophistication. As possible introductory texts, we mention Differential and Integral Calculus by R Courant, Calculus by T Apostol, Calculus by M Spivak, and Pure Mathematics by G Hardy. The reader should also have some experience with partial derivatives. In overall plan the book divides roughly into a first half which develops the calculus (principally the differential calculus) in the setting of normed vector spaces, and a second half which deals with the calculus of differentiable manifolds.