Description

“This delightful book connects mathematical concepts in a dozen areas to magic tricks. Expositions of the mathematics precede description and analysis of the tricks. The expositions are too short for in-depth learning; the intent is to give sophomores a taste of the content and ideas of later mathematics courses. Each chapter features exercises on the mathematics, and students can have fun practicing the tricks.” b Mathematics Magazine

Teixeira and Park present over 60 different magic tricks while introducing students to high-level math areas. Readers will learn really interesting ideas that will better prepare them for future courses and help them finding areas they might want to study deeper. And as a “side effect” students will learn amazing magic tricks, century-old secrets, and details from famous magicians and mathematicians.

The material was written to quickly present key concepts in several mathematical areas in direct way. Little or no proficiency in math is assumed. In fact, students do not require any Calculus knowledge. And since chapters are almost independent from each other, this book also work as introduction to several other courses.

Topics covered include mathematical proofs, probability, abstract algebra, linear algebra, mathematical computing, number theory, coding theory, geometry, topology, real analysis, numerical analysis and history of math.