Beginning of sample investigative tour

This sample tour takes you through the land of ellipses.

As you follow this tour, you will participate in a detective story. You begin with a problem in an historical context. On your tour you see how ideas are developed to solve the problem, and you encounter many new questions along the way. This process reflects the way mathematics has grown throughout time and how mathematical research continues today.

Feel free to wander from the tour. At any point, you'll be able to see a statement of the property by clicking on the Statement button. Similarly, you can see a proof, the detective's derivation, exercises, or a critique of the whole process. At any time you can click on the appropriate button and detour to an index page of properties, of term definitions, of problems, or of historical periods.

Tour guides cannot be responsible, however, for your safe return to the tour. You may need to use your browser's Back button a good bit. You can always start over at the Introduction page.

Enjoy your site seeing!