Elementary Mathematical Modeling: A Dynamic Approach - Softcover

Sandefur, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 053437803X ISBN 13: 9780534378035

Publisher: Brooks Cole, 2002

Synopsis

ELEMENTARY MATHEMATICAL MODELING uses mathematics to study problems arising in areas such as Genetics, Finance, Medicine, and Economics. Throughout the course of the book, students learn how to model a real situation, such as testing levels of lead in children or environmental cleanup. They then learn how to analyze that model in relationship to the real world, such as making recommendations for minimum treatment time for children exposed to lead paint or determining the minimum time required to adequately clean up a polluted lake. Often the results will be counterintuitive, such as finding that an increase in the rate of wild-life harvesting may actually decrease the long-term harvest, or that a lottery prize that is paid out over a number of years is worth far less than its advertised value. This use of mathematics illustrates and models real-world issues and questions, bringing the value of mathematics to life for students, enabling them to see, perhaps for the first time, the utility of mathematics.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. James Sandefur received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Tulane University and is Professor of Mathematics at Georgetown University. His interests are in differential equations in Hilbert space, equipartition of energy, and discrete dynamical systems. He has written nearly 40 mathematics papers and is the author of the texts "Discrete Dynamical Systems: Theory and Applications" and "Discrete Dynamical Modeling". He was the Principal Investigator on three different NSF grants, a Teacher Enhancement Institute, a Teacher Leadership Grant, and the Curriculum Development Grant, Hands-on Activities for Algebra, to develop hands-on models for developmental college math courses. He is a writer for the NCTM�s Principles and Standards . Dr. Sandefur was a program officer at NSF in the Instructional Materials Development Program. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Cornell University Center for Applied Mathematics, the University of Iowa, and the Freudenthal Institute at the University of Utrecht. Jim developed this manuscript for his freshmen-level modeling course for non-science majors at Georgetown. His course consistently fills and often has a waiting list, because of its popularity.

Edition details

• Publisher: Brooks Cole
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 053437803X
• ISBN 13: 9780534378035
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 436