A collection of the best from Mathematics Magazine. Gems from past issues of Mathematics Magazine or the Monthly or the College Mathematics Journal are read with pleasure when they appear, but get pushed into the background when the next issues arrive. So from time to time it is rewarding to go back and see just what marvellous material has been published over the years. There is history of mathematics (algebraic, numbers, inequalities, probability, and the Lebesgue integral, quaternions, Pòlya's enumeration theorem, and group theory) and history of mathematicians (Hypatia, Gauss, E. T. Bell, Hamilton, and Euler). The list of authors is star-studded: E. T. Bell, Otto Neugebaur, D. H. Lehmer, Morris Kline, Einar Hille, Richard Bellman, Judith Grabiner, Paul Erdös, B. L. van der Waerden, Paul R. Halmos, Doris Schattschneider, J. J. Burckhardt, Branko Grübaum, and many more. Eight of the articles included have received the Carl L. Allendoerfer or Lester R. Ford Awards.

Gerald L. Alexanderson grew up in Northern California and except for undergraduate years at the University of Oregon and short assignments in Illinois and Switzerland, has spent his life there. After graduate school at Stanford University, he joined the faculty at Santa Clara University where he is in his 50th year of teaching. He served as department chair for 35 years and holds the Valeriote Professorship in Science. From 1986 to 1990 he was editor of Mathematics Magazine, having served between 1984- and 1986 as First Vice President in 1997-99. By the most recent count he has served on 64 MAA committees or editorial boards and may hold a near record tenure of the MAA Board of Governors, 24 years. Active in various other professional societies, he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate for 12 years. In 2005 the MAA awarded him both the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics and the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics. In addition to articles in professional journals he has written, coauthored or coedited the following books: Functional Trigonometry, A First Undergraduate Course in Abstract Algebra, Mathematical People, the Santa Clara Silver Anniversary Problem Book, The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competitions: Problems and Solutions 1965-1984, International Mathematical Congress: An Illustrated History, Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics, The P=lya Picture Album, More Mathematical People, Lion Hunting and Other Mathematical Pursuits, and The Random Walks of George P=lya. Peter Ross was raised in the Midwest (born in Evanston, Illinois and attended high school in Madison, Wisconsin), but attended colleges on both coasts. After getting a BS from MIT and an MA from the University of California at Berkeley, he taught mathematics and physics in India as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1963 to 1965. With several more interludes of working for the government on ônew math,ö he eventually completed his PhD at Berkeley the day after his 40th birthday, and has taught in universities since then. Peter has been at Santa Clara University since 1982, teaching mathematics and some computer science. He has been active in the Mathematical Association of America, including writing Media Highlights and book reviews for the College Mathematics Journal since 1985. His hobbies include music, as a choral singer, and bicycle-commuting to work in San Jose, the tenth largest city in the country. He has worked with the Sierra Club on eleven ôservice tripsö in locations as diverse as Siberia, the Yukon, Mount Whitney, and Death Valley.