Introducing the Series: Wally's Math Books

It's been some time since I last did a blog post. Looking back on my previous posts makes me realize that I miss writing about math and teaching math. It's a kind of therapy for me. Even if no one likes my post or comments on it, it is there for me to look back on later. And I have a sense of accomplishment when a post is done, without the need for peer review or endless edits. (Speaking of peer review...an article I wrote on The Global Math Department was recently published in the NCTM Journal Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK-12.  The article appeared in the "Ear to the Ground" section and can be accessed here.)

Now back to the regularly scheduled blog post...I have decided to do a series of posts related to my grandfather's math textbooks from his freshmen year of college at The University of Pittsburgh.  Those posts will start in a week or so and I plan to do a post each week.  I figure that I blogged each day of the school year in a #teach180 blog during the 2017-2018 school year and I can meet a goal of blogging once a week.  The textbooks are from 1927 (nearly 100 years old) and inside I found what appears to be a copy of the syllabus! Now if only I could figure out what problems were assigned.  If I can figure that out, I may work through the exact same problems my grandfather did.  If I can't figure out the syllabus, then I'll select problems that have some of Wally's annotations written beside them.

The books are seen in the image at the top of this blog along with some notes that he left for me.  Walter Rupp (or Wally) was a chemical engineering major and his first course in his freshmen year involved books in Advanced Algebra and Analytic Geometry.  These courses laid the foundation for him to graduate at the age of 20 and become a successful engineer for Esso (now Exxon-Mobil).  He helped to create oil refineries in the Caribbean in the 1930's and some of his work led to patents of oil refining processes.