This is the first book to explore adult mathematics education. It aims to situate research and practice in adults learning mathematics within the wider field of lifelong learning and lifelong education. Topics covered include: mathematics and common sense; statistical literacy and numeracy; new theories on learning mathematics; mathematical competences for the workplace; ethnomathematics; and the training of tutors "Mathematics: The New Golden Age offers a glimpse of the extraordinary vistas and bizarre universes opened up by contemporary mathematicians: Hilbert's tenth problem and the four-color theorem, Gaussian integers, chaotic dynamics and the Mandelbrot set, infinite numbers, and strange number systems. Why a "new golden age"? According to Keith Devlin, we are currently witnessing an astronomical amount of mathematical research. Charting the most significant developments that have taken place in mathematics since 1960, Devlin expertly describes these advances for the interested layperson and adroitly summarizes their significance as he leads the reader into the heart of the most interesting mathematical perplexities - from the biggest known prime number to the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture for Fermat's Last Theorem."--BOOK JACKET. Read more... Prime numbers, factoring, and secret codes -- Sets, infinity, and the undecidable -- Number systems and the class number problem -- Beauty from chaos -- Simple groups -- Hilbert's tenth problem -- Four-color problem -- Hard problems about complex numbers -- Knots, topology, and the universe -- Fermat's last theorem -- Efficiency of algorithms
