自然科學的部落格

　　The author’s purpose is to share the thrills and excitement of ingenious solutions to intriguing elementary problems that he has had the good fortune to have conceived in the pursuit of his passion over many years.  His satisfaction lies in the beauty of these gems, not in the incidental fact that they happen to be his own work.  A wonderful solution is a glorious thing, whoever might have thought of it, and the author has worked diligently to make easy reading of the joy and delights of his often hard-won success.

　　As Director, responsible for composing the problems for the New Mexico Mathematics Contest before his retirement, the author consulted the wonderful books by Professor Ross Honsberger whenever he needed an inspiration.  As a result, the New Mexico Mathematics Contest rose to national prominence and the author received  the “Citation for Public Service” from the American Mathematical Society in 1998.  In this volume he collected his treatments of over a hundred  problems from the treasure trove of Professor Honsberger.

　　Perhaps it is best to quote Professor Honsberger, “This is a book for everyone who delights in the richness, beauty, and excitement of the wonderful ideas that abide in the realm of elementary mathematics.  I feel it is only fair to caution you that this book can lead to a deeper appreciation and love of mathematics.”

作者簡介

Liong-shin Hahn

　　Liong-shin Hahn was born into a family of physicians in Tainan, Taiwan.  He calls himself the black sheep of the family, because, like his father, Shyr-Chyuan Hahn, M.D., Ph.D., all five of his brothers became physicians.  After graduating from Tainan First Senior Middle School and the National Taiwan University, he attended Stanford University and obtained his Ph.D. there under Professor Karel deLeeuw.  He spent most of his career at the University of New Mexico, and while away from that institution, he held visiting positions at the University of Washington (Seattle), the National Taiwan University, the University of Tokyo, Sophia University (Tokyo) and the International Christian University (Tokyo).   As director of the mathematics contest sponsored by the University of New Mexico, he consulted frequently the superb books by Professor Ross Honsberger that seeded the birth of this book.  He authored Complex Numbers and Geometry (Mathematicial Association of  Americia, 1994), New Mexico Mathematics Contest Problem Book (University of New Mexico Press, 2005), and co-authored with Bernard Epstein Classical Complex Analysis (Jones and Bartlett, 1996).  He was awarded the Citation for Public Service from the American Mathematical Society in 1998.  His marriage to Hwei-Shien Lee (yet another M.D.) yielded three sons and seven grandchildren.