THE MATHWRIGHT LIBRARY NEWSLETTER, December 2001, VOL 3, #7
A publication of Bluejay Lispware
James E. White, Editor

The official publication of the New Mathwright Library and Café:

If you wish to unsubscribe to this Newsletter, just reply to this message with the word: "unsubscribe" in the subject.
If you would like to read this Newsletter in hypertext format, click "Current Newsletter" on the opening (index) page of the Library. Addressed to: Newsletter Subscriber

In this issue:

1] New Policy: First Three Free
2] Ten New Microworlds in the Library
3] All 3D Graphics books in the 3D Gallery are now free downloads
4] Search for your books in each of our 72 Rooms

1] New Policy: First Three Free

The Mathwright Library began its life on the web (in 1995) as a free library and remained so for five years, because our mission has always been, as Kirk and Spock might have said: "To explore new ways to bring mathematics to life for students."

As you know, we initiated a yearly subscription policy last year in order to pay for the maintenance of the Library itself, and to cover the costs of development of the software that brings these books to you. The books themselves are freely contributed to the Library by their generous Authors, who believe in our mission, and for that, we thank them. And we also thank you, our Library member subscribers, for helping to keep this idea alive.

We see that roughly 3/4 of our newsletter readers are classroom or homeschool teachers. And that makes sense, since we view ourselves as a resource for teachers , a resource that teachers may use to supplement and extend their classes and courses. But the other 1/4 of subscribers (a large number of visitors) don't know what to make of us. In the past, we selected a few "demonstration books" and offered them up for students to sample, but that policy ran counter to the spirit that we are trying to promote: Let readers choose the level and the topic that interests them, rather than choose for them. It has been a dilemma.

In order to guarantee that every visitor to the Library will have the chance to select from our roughly 180 books something that appears interesting to him or her, we have created a unique password for each Newsletter Subscriber that will allow you to select and download up to 3 complimentary WorkBooks or Microworlds of your choice (excluding complete courses).

Your password is ?:

If you need to know your password in the future, visit the Get your Password page in the Piazza, and we will remind you what it is. Of course, all of the Reader programs for these books (including the 3D books, now) are free downloads.

2] Ten New Microworlds in the Library

Subscribers often ask: What are Microworlds, and how are they different from WorkBooks? The short answer is that Microworlds are "WorkBooks" that you can read either off line in Mathwright32 Reader, or in your MSIE Browser with the MathwrightWeb plugin. The long answer appears on our MathwrightWeb Page. The new mathematics engine that supports our Microworlds is quite a bit more expressive and versatile than Mathwright 2000, and is better adapted to the 32-bit world of Windows 2000 and Windows XP (although it works fine in Windows 95/98/Me). You will see new things in our Microworlds -- things that just were not possible on the classic 16-bit platform. And all of the WorkBooks are being translated to Microworlds.

Here. we announce 10 new Microworlds at the Library that have not appeared there before. They are a few of the books written as part of the Mathematical Association of America's Project WELCOME by authors Samuel Masih (Albany State University, Ga) and Ravinder Kumar (Alcorn State University, Miss). While you may read these books in your browser after you download the free MathwrightWeb, you should probably start by reading them in the free Mathwright32 Reader if you plan to use your password, since you will then be able to open them any time in the future, from the Start, Programs, Mathwright32 Reader menu on your computer, whether you are on the web or not. Each will count then as a single complimentary Microworld on your password. For Library members, this is not a consideration.

Part of the charter of Project WELCOME is to develop interactive mathematical stories that can be used to supplement beginning college-level mathematics courses, and can help student readers visualize the constructions, techniques, and conventions they need to understand for those courses by giving them the opportunity to experiment, themselves, and to ask their own questions.

We list the 10 new Microworlds below. To read them in Mathwright32 Reader, just press Get this Microworld on the Title Page. Have your password handy!

Finally, you may have noticed the article by Mathwright authors Dan Kalman and James White: "Polynomial Equations and Circulant Matrices" in the November 2001 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly. Our Microworld: Cardano gives an informal rendering of many of its results in more elementary form in an interactive way.

3] All 3D WorkBooks in the 3D Gallery are now readable in PlayScapes

Since we will be extending Mathwright32 and MathwrightWeb with OpenGL-powered 3D Graphics shortly, we will subsume the functionality of MindScapes into our Microworlds. The PlayScapes Player that you may download from the Free Stuff page will now read all 3D WorkBooks in the 3D Gallery.

4] Search for your books in each of our 72 Rooms

The simplest way to find the WorkBooks or Microworlds you want is to visit the Stacks and look around. In the past, when you entered a Subject Room or a Category Room, you simply got an ordered list of the books resident there with their descriptions. Now, each room has a search engine that will allow you to select both level and text to narrow the list of books to choose among. If you make no selection, you see the full list again.

Happy Holidays!

James E. White, Ph.D.

Library Director