The Method of CoordinatesThe need for improved mathematics education at the high school and college levels has never been more apparent than in the 1990s. As early as the 1960s, I. M. Gel'fand and his colleagues in the USSR thought hard about this same question and developed a style for presenting basic mathematics in a clear and simple form that engaged the curiosity and intellectual interest of thousands of high school and college students. These same ideas, this same