Life of Fred - Five Days of Upper Division Math (College Series)

Life of Fred is a series of math books that break the old pattern of drill and kill. Instead of nothing but dry exposition and endless drill exercises, they contain fun stories about Fred Gauss, a child prodigy math genius. During his hilarious adventures, he encounters situations that call for solving math problems. Dr. Stanley Schmidt wrote these to make math come alive with humor, clear explanations, and silly illustrations that will make math a fun subject. Your children actually want to read these books. The stories carry on through the exercises, leading the student through them.  Many of the books have a series of quizzes called Bridges every few chapters. Passing a quiz means the student is ready for the next chapter. Some books have all the problem solutions in them, while others have separate answer keys or companions. The textbooks are all hardbound, the answer keys are comb-bound.

This program relies on reading comprehension and thinking and is non-consumable. You will not find 30 problems on every page of rote spoon-fed learning that is quickly forgotten.  This is totally different, a new way of learning, and everything you need is in the book. As a parent, you will quickly pick up on the novel way as you read along and learn with your student.  Books available for grades K - 12.
Life of Fred- Five Days of Upper Division Math- Set Theory, Modern Algebra, Abstract Arithmetic, Topology Rather than a course of study, this book is a sampler of advanced math for students who love math and Fred and want to preview courses they may take later. Upper division (college junior/senior) pure math is much different than calculus. No “word problems,” no formulas to memorize, no concrete applications—just puzzles to solve. Instead of learning procedures, students create definitions, theorems, and proofs. These are the first five days of Fred’s teaching set theory, modern algebra, abstract arithmetic, and topology. Each of the 139 assignments/puzzles/questions that he gives his students calls for creativity rather than doing drill work. Some of these can be done in a minute. Some will take several hours to complete. They are all meant to be enjoyed. The first day of set theory- cardinality of a set, set builder notation, naive set theory, modus ponens, seven possible reasons to give in a math proof, the high school geometry postulates are inconsistent, the proof that every triangle is isosceles, normal sets. The first day of modern algebra- definition of a math theory, six properties of equality, formal definition of a binary operation, formal definition of a function, the definition of a group, right cancellation law, left inverses, commutative law. The first day of abstract arithmetic- circular definitions, unary operations, the successor function, natural numbers, the five Peano postulates, mathematical induction. The first day of topology- topology is all about friendship, listed and counting subsets, open sets, the discrete topology, the three axioms of a topology, models for a topology, open intervals. By the fifth day Fred will have covered the Schröder-Bernstein theorem (set theory), proved Lagrange’s theorem for subgroups of any group (modern algebra), defined the real numbers based only on the concept of “adding one” (abstract arithmetic), and explored continuous images of compact sets (topology).

Hardback, ISBN 978-1-937032-23-4, 208 pages Click here to view sample pages.