Content

• Year 7
• Year 8
• Year 9
• Year 10
• Year 11
• Year 12

Introduction

“Lawyers make great mathematicians,” Mandy said, “because they like to follow rules.”

“Well,” Jamie replied, “there’s Descartes.”

“Descartes, who is famous for saying ‘I think, therefore I am’,” Mandy quoted, “he graduated from college where he studied law (apparently with little enthusiasm), before becoming a mathematician and inventing the Cartesian plane.”

“St Augustine, 500 years before Decartes, said ‘fallor ergo sum’ meaning – ‘I err therefore I am’,” Joe commented.

“But I think higher level mathematics is more an art than a science, which is the beauty of it,” Jamie replied, “an answer pages long to a single line question – now that is amazing.”

“Reminds me of college girls who, following a single line question, load their entire life story on you,” Joe replied.

“I think someone liiiiikes Joe,” Mandy said.

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space and change. It’s about patterns, conjectures, rigorous deductions, based on axioms and definitions.

Mathematics is useful in areas such as natural science, engineering, medicine and the social sciences.

“So let’s get started on maths,” Jamie said.

“That’ll be a [1], binary for yes,” Mandy responded.