Hanna David The University of Munich <hannadav@post.tau.ac.il> Mathematical Giftedness: The Mathematics Acceleration Programs at the Tel Aviv University Dedicated to the graduates and the students of the Shevach-Mofet high school in Tel Aviv that were killed at the Dolphinarium Night Club in Tel Aviv. Introduction The phenomenon of mathematical giftedness has been quite common during the history of human civilization. Records of mathematically precocious children have been written by educators and scientists, as well as by parents. Mathematics has been one of the three domains in which children have reached adult achievements before adolescence: the other two domains are music and chess. However, as both chess and performing music are not academic fields, mathematics remains the only domain in which the way between excellent performances during childhood seems to lead to an excellent quality of adult achievements. This is the main reason why so many educators and political decision-makers are likely to share an interest in children with high mathematical potential. However, not all precocious children are to fulfill their potential; many of these children are mathematically gifted. More boys than girls bridge the gap between their high potential and low achievements during high school (Ziv, 1990). However, not all of them do, including many mathematically gifted children. Programs such as the Acceleration mathematics program of the TAU helps to materialize potential into achievement. Why Mathematics? Ziv (ibid.) defines “giftedness” as “potential of excellence”. In accordance with this definition, children who perform above their age-group are still performing as children: when an eight-years-old boy demonstrates a reading ability of a boy 4 years his senior, he still reads like a child. A ten-ears-old girl who is an excellent painter cannot be compared to any adult painter. However, we all know young children who compute better then ourselves; we have all heard about school children who do