Recent Mathematical Acquisitions

I love math.  And I really love teaching math.  If you didn't know that, you are now learning some very fundamental information about me.

Recently I have gained some lovely additions to my collection of math books and other math paraphernalia.

The first object is nostalgic in nature.  It is a DVD version of Donald in Mathmagic Land.  I already own the VHS version, but let us face the fact that VHSs are becoming archaic.

the VHS cover

In fact, when I hunted down a copy of this treasure only a few years ago, it was just available in VHS so I bought it anyway.  I happened upon it a couple of weeks ago online and was delighted to find that it has now made its way to DVD.  Whew!

the new DVD cover

I am happily instilling a love for this movie early in my own children as we gained a love for it early in our childhood.  The package arrived from Amazon around noon today and Matthew has already viewed it four times.  

Now for the second acquisition, and the story of how I obtained it.  It is a never-before-used Calculus (sixth edition) by Larson, Hostetler, and Edwards.  Beautiful.

This is the same edition of the calculus book that I used in high school.  And the same one that my siblings all used in high school.  I happen to prefer it to all other calculus books that I have encountered - and I have encountered many in my day!  Memories of Mr. Haldane's calculus class come flooding back.

And now for how I got ahold of one.  Last weekend I helped one of the math teachers at Wendover High clean out her classroom.  There were relics in there from over 15 years ago.  It was amazing.  (As a side note, sometime I will blog about what we found in Joseph's new classroom when we cleaned it out last August.  You'll like it.)  I was digging in the back of a cupboard and, buried beneath much garbage, was this jewel.  Three circumstances surrounding this book allowed this beauty to make its way home with me that day.  The first is that there are three more editions of this book that have been published since this edition so it is not particularly "current" in terms of high school textbooks.  Second, Wendover High does not even offer any math class above Algebra 2.  No Pre-Calc and definitely no Calculus.  Third of all, the teacher I was helping was going to throw it away.  Thus, it is now in my possession.  I am not sure that I can express my joy at owning the beloved tome.  Ahhh!

This post is largely to incite jealousy among my siblings.  But don't worry, I'll let them borrow them if they need to.