Mathcircle
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The Math Circle, a program of courses founded in 1994, designed for students who enjoy math and want the added challenge of exciting topics that are normally outside the school curriculum. It founders are Robert & Ellen Kaplan, best-selling authors of Nothing That Is, Chances Are: Adventures in Probability , and The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics
Its teachers are experienced, committed, and enthusiastic. Our classes encourage a free discussion of ideas; while the courses are mathematically rigorous, the atmosphere is friendly and relaxed.
Children are encouraged via Socratic method as they ask key exploratory questions. Are there numbers between numbers? What's a geometry like with no parallel lines? A soccer ball is made of pentagons and hexagons, with three edges meeting at each vertex. Why MUST the number of pentagons used be twelve? Can you tile a square with squares all of different sizes?
Many example courses are outlined on the group's website and in an Oxford University Press book on the Math Circle entitled Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free. Our Philosophy:
"What you have been obliged to discover by yourself leaves a path in your mind which you can use again when the need arises." --G. C. Lichtenberg
An example lecture by the Kaplans serves as a convincing demonstration that young children can discover some of the larger truths in mathematics through the Socratic method, on the website for Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.
[edit] External links
- The Math Circle
- The Mathematics Sciences Research Institute - Video of The Math Circle students in action
