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4
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3
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4
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4
out of 5
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Top 500 Contributor
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A Course For Many to Enjoy
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Date: November 19, 2009
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"If you are someone who has a bit more than a basic math background or have taken a few college math courses, I think you will enjoy this course. I really don't think it is for everyone, so the range of math experience that I would recommend this to is the range mentioned in my first sentence. If you have little math experience, then a primer would be necessary, or perhaps even the optional course book companion would work well. If you have a B.S. level knowledge of mathematics, this may be a bore, but don't knock it right off. The professor is very enthusiastic and presents the material well, so I would consider this course well presented, but watered down as far as content is concerned."
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4
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| Course Content: |
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4
out of 5
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5
out of 5
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3
out of 5
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Top 500 Contributor
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Funny course
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Date: October 31, 2009
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"this course helped me so much in deepen my knowledge of mathematics,
lots of mathematical Technics"
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| Overall Rating: |
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5
out of 5
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5
out of 5
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5
out of 5
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5
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Top 50 Contributor
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Seeing math from a different "angle"
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Date: October 5, 2009
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"Professor Benjamin’s “Joy of Mathematics” is a course I would buy for my children because it not only adds some fun to an otherwise routinely taught topic, but gives you a different angle in understanding what we learned in high school. I gained new insights into what I learned in my younger years, insights I wish I had been taught when the respective topics were taught in the first place.
Benjamin’s style and flare was very welcome, as were his corny jokes. He makes mathematics fun with his enthusiastic delivery style and lively demeanor. I can certainly understand why in 2006, Professor Burger was listed in the Reader's Digest annual "100 Best of America" special issue as "Best Math Teacher." If you hate monotone or dull presenters, then you will love Professor Benjamin. He never stops moving! I like that.
The content of the course receives mostly a positive review from me. I say “mostly positive” because I am not so interested in “mathemagic” at my age (40s) but younger children or teens who are mathematically inclined will enjoy what is covered in that regard. I did like one trick taught in the modular mathematics section for mentally computing the day of the week for any date. The course gave me an appreciation for modular math that escaped me when I was first exposed to it in first year university. I very much appreciated the approach of using combinatorics (which I never took) in explaining probability and working with series; I couldn’t believe how combinatorics made understanding very simple when compared to using summations and ‘this choose that’, etc. This was one of many “I wish they would have shown me that one in school” moments. I look back and with the benefit of the material taught in this course, realize that many topics were indeed taught in a lackluster way. Professor Benjamin makes this stuff fun and in addition, shows other angles to look at math with that either simplify or make meaningful what was taught by rote learning and without meaning in high school.
I never knew that there were visual methods to understanding algebra or algebra’s relationship to trigonometric formula derivation. The idea that a mathematical “picture” could be constructed that makes an otherwise difficult concept easy to see and hence, understand, was a “WOW” moment. I was just amazed. This stuff really should be part of every school’s math curriculum. I even understand how to construct proofs a bit better, though I doubt I will every find “the Joy of Proofs”.
If you had even the slightest interest in mathematics in your younger days, I highly recommend you revisit what you were taught in high school or first year university with Professor Benjamin’s “The Joy of Mathematics”."
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.
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