The first part of Emanouil Blias’ book inspired me, and I would like to thank Prof. Blias for the pleasant moments with this book. The book proposes a new, absolutely original and clear approach to teaching elementary mathematics to high school students. It guides the readers in an attractive way through the most difficult topics in elementary mathematics, connected with logic and mathematical thinking. It shows very nicely, clearly and with reasonable rigor how to solve the problems that high school mathematics deals with and it presents possible and logical ways of solving them. The book clearly shows that problems with parameters make a nice source of logical reasoning to help students to understand mathematical thinking in elementary mathematics learning.

This book is also very useful for the introductory part of the postsecondary education. It introduces several topics of discrete mathematics (logical reasoning, proofs, basic Number theory, and Set theory) in a very clear way with all necessary details. The book will help college students to avoid many difficulties with understanding when they first meet proofs and logical reasoning in the postsecondary curriculum.

The content of the book suggests that mathematics is not a scarecrow, horrifying students with the usage of mindless computational algorithms where we get some results in some way without knowing what we have calculated and why we have calculated it. The author of the book convinces us that mathematics is not a thoughtless drill in practicing procedures, but a powerful logical tool for solving many problems.

Prof. Blias shows that mathematics needs to be approached not only with reason, but also with a sense of insight into the problem presented, and with the attempt to understand the problem and the way to solve it. Mathematics then ceases to be a scarecrow and becomes a pleasant companion that helps us to solve and to orient ourselves in everyday problems.

This book will certainly inspire students to look for mathematical approaches to solving the problems they encounter in everyday life. By carefully reading Prof. Blias’ book, the students realize that mathematics is all around us. I wish for myself and students that the first edition of Emanouil Blias’ book, Part 1, will soon be
followed by the forthcoming edition of the second and third volumes.

Jaroslav Jánský,

high school mathematics teacher at the high school TRIVIS – Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.
Address:
Poštovní 7, 36001 Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic
Phone: 721 680 655
Email: janskyjar@seznam.cz