A Day's Adventure In Math Wonderland

Book excerpt: Math Wonderland is a museum of interactive mathematical models in Hokkaido, Japan, founded by one of the authors, Jin Akiyama, in 2003. The models in Wonderland, many of which have been exhibited all over Japan and in cities around the world, are meant to help children and young adults discover and experience the wonders of mathematics.This book is centered around the experiences of three fictional middle-school students during a visit to Wonderland. They spend a day in Wonderland, handling the interactive models and participating in the activities offered there. At the end of the day, they leave with a genuine appreciation of mathematics gained from witnessing its beauty, applicability and inevitability.The book is an important contribution to the genre because it presents mathematics and models that have never before appeared in books in the same category: reversible solids, plane tiling with developments of tetrahedrons, and double-packable solids, which are derived from the authors' own research papers published in mathematics journals. It is designed to entertain, inform and even teach some mathematics. Although it is targeted at young adults, parents and teachers may learn something from the book as well.