The Mathematics Calendar 2012

Today more than ever THE MATHEMATICS CALENDAR reminds us how mathematics describes nature, impacts the sciences, is essential to architecture, influences the arts, is inseparable from music, exercises and tantalizes the mind with its puzzles and problems, stimulates and creates new technologies, and reveals the multi-dimensions of our world and universe through its ever evolving ideas and insights.

In mathematical circles THE MATHEMATICS CALENDAR has reached cult status.

33 years after its inception THE MATHEMATICS CALENDAR continues to awe its audience with its cutting edge math topics, its exciting graphics and mind-boggling problems. This calendar continues to be a hit with teachers, students, engineers, math buffs, puzzle lovers, and gift buyers.

The 2012 MATHEMATICS CALENDAR will be a special edition— a retrospective. It will be a compilation of past years illustrating how this unique calendar evolved. Twelve months from over 32 years of work not only show how its present design evolved but also show the depth and breadth of math topics and their incredible influence on our lives.

EACH DAY OF EVERY MONTH HAS A PROBLEM, WHOSE SOLUTION IS THE DATE. The brain teaser lies in figuring how to arrive at the answer, and possibly discovering more than one method of solving the date's problem. For each month, the problems range from arithmetic to calculus.

EACH MONTH'S TEXT, PHOTOS and GRAPHICS have a wealth of information and are even sprinkled with a bit of humor. The twelve topics feature exciting, historic and current math ideas and topics.

Wherever it is seen, it’s a conversation item because it is more than a calendar— it has tantalizing problems on each day and a treasure trove of information, games, puzzles and stories. It stimulates curiosity and imagination. THERE'S IS NOTHING LIKE IT ON THE MARKET. It is uniquely designed, so that the answer to each day’s problem is the date where the problem appears. Theoni Pappas is committed to demystifying mathematics. The MATHEMATICS CALENDAR has given thousands of people a new perspective about math —it can be fun, fascinating & intriguing.

 (29 customer reviews)

If you're like me and think that mathematics is great fun, then the idea of having a calendar with a new problem for each day probably sounds pretty intriguing. Indeed, this could be a great product if done well. But the calendar has several shortcomings.

For one, many (most?) of the problems test knowledge rather than intelligence. For example, one problem shows a subtraction problem with one number written in Mayan numerals and the other written in Chinese. Now, if you recognize Mayan and Chinese numbers, this problem requires no thought whatsoever. If you don't, no amount of puzzling will avail you. Another asks, "If 100 quadrillion is written in scientific notation, you get 10^?" This is the same sort of thing. Mathematics should be about reasoning, not trivia. Particularly when each problem has the date as its solution, meaning that questions like the last are more statements of fact than questions.

My other problem with it is that it isn't presented very...Read more

I'm on my second year, and I got the one for kids as well. These calendars are great for keeping your math skills up. For each day of the year, you are presented with a problem -- and the answer to that problem is the day of the month! Very diverse problem types, some tricky, some straightforward. Coverage of algebra, geometry, some trigonometry, number/set theory, the occasional calculus problem, and famous formulas (e.g., one problem from January 2011 required knowledge of Euler's identity: e^(i*pi)= -1). Basically what you would expect in an advanced high school setting. Also, the top half covers a mathematical topic of interest, with extensive references to web sites and printed works. If you want to boost your nerd cred, then nothing beats hanging this in your cube space and showing your work for each and every day of the month, preferably in near-illegible pencil scrawl.

Good value for the price; 365 creative math problems from arithmetic, algebra 1 and 2, geometry, trig., and precalculus. Plus some brainbuster problems and a crossword puzzle. Each month has a write-up on some topic such as "the parabola's staying power." Attractive graphics throughout. I enjoyed solving several of the problems last night.