Foreword

The Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences (APICS) was established in 1962. Membership is on an institutional basis and includes universities, government research units, community colleges and other agencies based in Atlantic Canada. The organization is science-oriented and non-profit, with a mission to promote interest in the sciences and to organize and coordinate science-related activities throughout Atlantic Canada.

The work of APICS is carried out mainly by its committees. As fairly independent entities, committees set their own goals and initiate their own activities. Typically, they organize lecture tours, run annual undergraduate conferences and student competitions and comment upon issues related to the science curriculum in schools and universities. They also publish a variety of papers and reports and, occasionally, books of which the work at hand is an example.

This book is the culmination of efforts by Professors Roland Eddy and Michael Parmenter, of the Memorial University of Newfoundland, whose idea it was to honour W. J. Blundon by collecting his problem-solving contributions to the mathematical literature. Having become aware of the existence of an ensuing manuscript, the APICS Mathematics and Statistics Committee caught the vision of a book and is only too pleased to have been able to support its final publication. The Committee is deeply indebted to Professors Eddy and Parmenter without whose dedication and hard work this book would not have been possible.

We also acknowledge, with gratitude, the cooperation of various publishers who kindly helped us by granting permission to quote problems and solutions from their journals. In particular, we thank the Canadian Mathematical Society, publisher of the Canadian Mathematical Bulletin and Crux Mathematicorum; the American Mathematical Society, publisher of the American Mathematical Monthly, the College Mathematics Journal and Mathematics Magazine; Birkhäuser Verlag, the publisher of Elemente der Mathematik; the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, publisher of SIAM Review; and finally, the Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, publishers of Nieuw Archief voor Wiskunde.