Creative Mathematics

Professor H. S. Wall (1902–1971) developed Creative Mathematics over a period of many years of working with students at the University of Texas, Austin. His aim was to lead students to develop their mathematical abilities, to help them learn the art of mathematics, and to teach them to create mathematical ideas. This book, according to Wall, 'is not a compendium of mathematical facts and inventions to be read over as a connoisseur of art looks over paintings. It is, instead, a sketchbook in which readers try their hands at mathematical discovery.' In less than two hundred pages, he takes the reader on a stimulating tour starting with numbers, and then moving on to simple graphs, the integral, simple surfaces, successive approximations, linear spaces of simple graphs, and concluding with mechanical systems. The book is self contained, and assumes little formal mathematical background on the part of the reader.