Throughout this text, motivating real-world applications, examples, and exercises demonstrate how integral mathematical understanding is to student mastery in other disciplines, a variety of occupations, and everyday situations. A distinctive side-by-side format, pairing each example with a corresponding practice exercise, encourages students to get actively involved in the mathematical content from the start. Unique Mindstretchers target different levels and types of student understanding in one comprehensive problem set per section. Mindstretchers incorporate related investigation, critical thinking, reasoning, and pattern recognition exercises along with corresponding group work and historical connections. To show how mathematics has evolved over the centuries, in many cultures, and throughout the world, each chapter features a compelling Cultural Note that investigates and illustrates the origins of mathematical concepts. Diverse topics include art, music, the evolution of digit notation, and the ancient practice of using a scale to find an unknown weight.