Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from General Mathematics
6. One of the most curious characteristics of American secondary-mathematics instruction is the obscurity in the teaching of the function notion. It is generally agreed that functional thinking (the dependence of one magnitude upon another) constitutes one of the most fundamental notions of mathematics. Because of the interrelations of the equation, the formula, the function, the graph, and the geometric relations inductively acquired, the material is easily correlated around the function idea as the organizing and unifying principle. The function concept (implicitly or explicitly) dominant throughout helps to lend concreteness and coherence to the subject. However, it would be false to assume that this material is presented to establish the principle of correlation. On the contrary, it happens that correlation around the function notion, though incidental, is a valuable instrument for accomplishing the larger aim, which is to obtain a composite introductory course in mathe maties that all future citizens of our democracy should be required to take as a matter of general scholarship. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
