We have the following 4 reasons to start our Master Maths blog:

• answer popular questions from our mathematics students
• share our very different educational experience in maths
• share learning experience of our students (anonymously)
• provide a forum for exchanging and generating new ideas.

We assume that our readers are smart and can make their own conclusions from our stories, so we shall try to be open-minded and give real-life examples instead of unjustified advice.

In our blog we shall give regular tips and advice how to

• concisely write full mathematical statements, see our first riddle below
• use proper notations in solutions and avoid confusing symbols like .’.
• check results of numerical computations without starting from scratch
• fill important gaps in the mathematics curriculum of the UK schools

Our plan is to post at least once per month in the 4 broad categories:

• dethroning a popular myth in the UK school mathematics
• tips and common mistakes from our students’ experience
• discussion of a general method or a powerful principle
• educational story from our non-UK personal experience.

If you have suggestions for topics in our blog,  post a comment by clicking on “Leave a reply” in the upper left corner (name and e-mail needed) or e-mail blogger@master-maths.co.uk.

We hope to post weekly on Fridays, possibly fortnightly during vacations. Our next post will be on 5th July 2013: “How to get in top universities for maths degrees: 4 mistakes and 4 tips”.

For those who would like to test their maths skills right now, here is our first riddle:

• Riddle 1: state the theorem illustrated by our logo in the upper left corner.
• How to submit: to write your full rigorous answer, submit a comment.
• Hint: the statement should be clear to anyone who hasn’t seen it before.
• Warning: almost all first attempts are incomplete by our past experience.
• Restriction: only the first fully correct public answer will be rewarded.
• Prize: free 1-year access to one of our interactive web tutorials.
• Update: after attempts 1 and 2 Learner has won the prize.

If you wish to receive automatic e-mails about our new posts (for a quicker chance to answer a riddle and win a prize) or distance courses, please contact us and tick the box “keep me updated”. You can easily unsubscribe at any time by e-mailing “unsubscribe” in the subject line.