The Beauty of Math (or What Your Math Teacher Should Have Taught You) Series

I am pleased to announce the first beautiful series!  A series is a set of blog posts on a particular topic.  This series is on the beauty of math.  In particular, I will be highlighting a few of the most beautiful, elegant, and simple topics in mathematics that I have encountered.  Unfortunately, a lot of fascinating areas of mathematics are not introduced to students in K-12 education, which I think is partially why mathematics is not appealing to so many students.  Some of these topics are introduced in college level mathematics courses, but I think many are simple enough to explain to an interested, young K-12 student, or an adult who hasn't touched math in years.

Furthermore, I think some of the most elegant parts of mathematics are introduced in a way that makes students dislike or even despise them.  For example, the topic of proofs.  Proofs are the foundation of mathematics (after the axioms used to prove all else).  They are the commonality among all of the fields of mathematics, and what really makes the subject the beautiful subject it is.  However, when most young students take their high school geometry class, I don't think they get a good impression of what proofs are, why they are important, and why they are beautiful.  Perhaps, geometric proofs are taught because they are rather straightforward, easy to teach, and simply require routine applications of axioms and theorems.  In a sense all proofs are applying axioms, theorems, and logical rules of deduction to reach a conclusion, but in practice many require creativity, and many can be very elegant.  Therefore, I would like to give a taste of this beautiful subject to you, and I hope you will follow along in this journey, especially if you think you don't like math.

I hope you enjoy the background photo of this blog.  It is a beautiful combination of art and mathematics. But do not worry.  I won't be doing math with many complicated symbols, formulae, and the like.  I will try to keep things simple.  Some posts may require more mathematical background and will require thought, but others will simply require an elementary/middle school mathematical background.  I will also try to go over most of the necessary background, to help you fully enjoy the beauty of math!