Course Identification

First-year courses of the Rothschild-Weizmann program in mathematics.

The course is built as a support seminar for the second-year RW mathematics students working on their final project. In the framework of the course, each student will present at least 3-4 times his or her final project at different stages of work, from preliminary ideas, through intermediate stages, the work outline, etc., until a student is prepared to present the more-or-less final version of the work presented. The students will receive recommendations on mathematical writing.

In addition, the students will perform assignments aimed at their exposure to classic and modern cornerstone books in mathematics listed in the reading list.

The 25% seminar component in the final grade refers to the didactic- and self-study unit which the student is to compose on the basis of the final project mathematical topic, perform and evaluate using the appropriate research methodology.

Upon successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. Write their project in a proficient and coherent form.

2. Design, teach and assess a school-level teaching unit based on an advanced mathematical topic

Mathematical writing:

1. Some Notes on Writing Mathematics https://sites.math.washington.edu/~lee/Courses/583-2005/writing.pdf
2. Su F. E. Guidelines for Good Mathematical Writing  https://www.math.hmc.edu/~su/math131/good-math-writing.pdf . 

Books:

1. Alan Sultan, Alice F. Artzt. The mathematics that every secondary school teacher need to know. Routledge. (2017).s
2. Davis P. J., Hersh R. Mathematical Experience
3. Hardy G. H., A Mathematician's Apology
4. Courant R. & Robbins H., What is Mathematics?
5. Klein F. Elementary Mathematics form a Higher Standpoint (vols. I-III, chapters subject to the lecturer's recommendation)
6. Polya G. Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning
7. Polya G. Mathematical Discovery
8. Artstein Z. Mathematics and the Real World
9. Manin Yu. Mathematics and Physics
10. Bertsch McGrayne Sh. The Theory that Would Not Die
11. Singh S. Fermat's Last Theorem
12. Singh S. The Code Book
13. Hadamard J. The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field
14. Borovik A. V.  Shadows of the Truth: Metamathematics of Elementary Mathematics
15. Gamow G. One two three ... infinity. Facts & Speculations of Science