- View more resources from this publisherThe Mathematics Centre, University of Chichester
Computer Help in Mathematical Problem Solving
This booklet, from the Mathematics Centre at the University of Chichester, explores how the microcomputer can be a valuable tool when engaged in investigating a situation that leads to such laborious arithmetic that the 'sums' spoil the activity, especially in the organisation of data and the start of a search for a pattern.
The purpose of this booklet is to provide short programs to take care of the tedious part of a number of intriguing investigations. The booklet advocates that in every case a start should be made by hand, and the programs only used when the labour of repetitive calculation begins to spoil the search for pattern.
The programs are written for a BBC computer though most will run on other machines using BASIC with little or no change.
The investigations include Number Chains, Happy Numbers, Fibonacci sequences, Modulo arithmetic and Triangles on a geoboard.
All the investigations and the programs used are described in detail, often giving a number of alternative directions that could be followed. This is especially so with the search for prime numbers. Here different search parameters that can be used are compared.
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