Dear Reader!

 

Mathematics is often kept in the everyday life as something mystic and terrifying, but at least very difficult to understand. We know that this is simply not true. Mathematics appears in every fields of sciences and every moment of our life. Phenomena in the Nature are often described by quite complicated mathematical models which cannot be studied using only classical theoretical methods. In addition or even instead, experimental methods are needed. These methods became possible by the appearance of high powered desktop computers with realistic real-time graphical capabilities.

Now, computer visualization and modeling tools have become an organic part of scientific research and education, even in the most abstract disciplines such as Mathematics. Their influence is still increasing. They help to find conjectures, illustrate problems, avoid tiresome and repetitive calculations and even they are used in mathematical proofs.

Our students can understand and explore Mathematics themselves by seeing more and more popular applications. Experimental and visual study as well as becoming experts of the computing and visualization tools can lead them to deep theoretical research.

That is why we wrote this "book". It was not an easy but really a joyful work. This collection mirrors part of the research and teaching activities of the mathematicians from the University of Szeged and the University of Novi Sad. Members of our team from both universities wrote an article of their favorite research topics in  popular form.

We do not want to pick up any topic from the 19 papers. Read and play with all of them! Many of our papers are really interactive, as they make possible further experiments.

We hope that you will find our work useful even if you are high school or graduate student, teacher or university professor.

 

 

Szeged, Novi Sad, August 31, 2011

 

Róbert Vajda and János Karsai

editors