April Fools Joke draws a lot of
hits
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| The math majors got an unexpected piece of news April 1,
2002: An email informing them of new outcomes in the General
Education Guidelines of Georgia Tech. These guidelines, the message
asserted, would force all GT grads to take high level programing and mathematics
courses. 100 Majors (not all of them guilible, to be sure!) followed the
link to get more information---the link to the April
Fools message.
S.K. wrote back: "Dr. Lacey, That was too good. I was scared to death
about the CS 4XXX requirement. Really funny!"
P.P. wrote back: " I am rolling on the floor laughing!!! You got me
up until the very end when you were taking about hiring 15 people and I
realized oh wait I had a bad experience earlier today why was this?? Yes,
Happy April Fool's Prof. Lacey!!" |
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Professor John McCuan to participate
in the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows program, develop ACE Lab experiments
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| March 2002. Professor John
McCuan will participate in a special teaching program, sponsored by
the Class of 1969. As part of the program, Professor McCuan will design
ACE
Lab experiments that will be used in various differential equations
and mathematical modeling courses.
The Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows program offers participants the opportunity
to develop their pedagogical techniques and to sharpen their individual
teaching skills through classroom observations, videotape critiques, student
dialogs conducted by a CETL professional, seminars, and a teaching project.
There is one class of Fellows per academic year. During the first semester
of the two-semester commitment, the Fellows attend a series of weekly seminars
on various aspects of teaching. These include such topics as cognitive
science - how students learn, interactive alternatives to the lecture,
working with graduate students, using technology as a teaching tool, teaching
on video, and teaching tips from award-winning professors.
During the second semester of the Teaching Fellowship, participants
receive a grant to implement, with the assistance of their self-selected
mentor, a teaching project involving undergraduate education.
Professor McCuan has been teaching in the ACE lab already, and is scheduled
to teach the honors Differential Equations, Math 2413, incorporating experiments
and demonstrations in the ACE lab. |
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Yakov Kerzhner and Anup Rao awarded
2002 School of Math prizes.
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| March 2002. Each spring semester the School of Mathematics
selects an outstanding junior and senior majoring in Mathematics. The junior
award is the Currie Scholarship Award. Both prizes come with a check.
This year's awards go to Yakov Kerzhner, as the outstanding junior,
and Anup Rao as the oustanding senior. Yakov has just over the 60 credit
hours to have standing as a junior, and has advanced quite rapidly in his
studies. He plans on taking the graduate algebra sequence in the Fall semester.
Anup Rao is a double major in Math and Computer Science, and is graduating
this semester. Following a demanding degree path, he has a very high GPA,
and distinguished himself on the 2001 Putnam with a score placing him at
143 out of nearly 3000 test takers. (See the article below!)
Those who received the awards in the past two years is found by following
the "Awards" link on the left. |
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GT Math 2001 Putnam Scores are
in: Placed 22nd out of 453.
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| March 2002. The scores for the 2001 William Lowell Putnam
Mathematical Competition are in. I'm happy to report that Georgia Tech
students performed very well.
Out of the 453 institutions that participated the competition, our team
finished 22nd. The top five teams are: Harvard, MIT, Duke, Berkeley and
Stanford, as usual.
But more importantly, 18 students from Tech took the exam, and 14 of
whom scored some points. As you know the Putnam is notorious for its difficulty.
Of the 2954 participants the median is 1 point this year.
Two of our students, Anup Rao (CS+math) and Billy Francisco (Math) scored
41 points (rank 143.5th). Particularly encouraging is the fact that many
of the students only knew about the Putnam Exam last year and took the
exam for the first time (Francisco, Yakov and Boris Kerzhner, Troung, Lacey,
Stoudenmire, Nakamura, Cuneo, Mather, Wambrandt). Several of the aforementioned
students were freshmen. Below are the scores of our students:
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name
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score
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rank
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Anup Rao
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41
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(143.5th)
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Billy Francisco
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41
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Matt Fisher
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20
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(494th)
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Yakov Kerzhner
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15
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Nguyen Truong
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12
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Blair Dowling
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10
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(970th)
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Nimesh Bhakta
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10
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Vincent Lacey
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10
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Boris Kerzhner
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9
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Miles Stoudenmire
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2
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Nitesh Singh
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1
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Kathleen Deloughery
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1
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Brian Nakamura
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1
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Joshua Cuneo
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1
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Some general info:
-high score: 101 (there was 1 of these, 1 at 100, then it dropped quickly
to 86 to 80)
-top 494 cutoff score: 21
-2954 participants from 453 institutions
-scoring a 10 puts you at rank 970
-1 point puts you at rank 1469.5
-0 points is rank 2292
The Putnam Exam is given in December of each year. Professor Wang runs
problem sessions, training students who want to take the exam. See his
links for the Putnam
Exam. |
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April 4th to 9th will be packed
with special events, "Proof," Conway, Winkler and more
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| March 2002. From Thursday April 4 to Tuesday April 9 there
will be several special events taking place in and around the School of
Mathematics. Here is the run down:
Thursday April 4, 11:00 am, Skiles 249: Discussion with Susan Booth, director
of the play "Proof"
Thursday April 4, 3:00 pm, Skiles 269: Peter Winkler (Bell Labs) gives
a seminar, "Games People Don't Play." Undergraduates encouraged to attend.
Thursday April 4, 4:30 pm, Skiles 265: Peter Winkler (Bell Labs) gives
a colloquium: "Building Uniformly Random Objects."
Sunday, April 7, 2:30pm, Alliance Theatre: "Proof"
Monday April 8, 12 noon, College of Computing 102: Erik D. Demaine (MIT)
gives a seminar "Folding and Unfolding in Computational Geometry"
Monday April 8, 4:30 pm, Skiles 249: John Conway (Princeton) gives a seminar
"Understanding Polyhedra and Theor Symmetries"
Tuesday April 9, 3pm Skiles 269: David Wolfe (Gustavus Aldophus College)
gives a seminar, "Putting the Combinatorics in Combinatorial Game Theory"
Tuesday April 9, 5pm, Clary Theater , Student Success Center: John Conway
(Princeton) gives the Steltson Lecture "Tangles, Knots, and Numbers" Followed
by a reception at 6pm.
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Elizabeth Sanders to participate
in the Mathematics in Moscow Semester
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| March 2002. Elizabeth Sanders, a sophmore in Applied Mathematics
is going to Moscow this fall. She will be attending the Math
in Moscow semester, at the Independent University of Moscow.
This program is still in it's infancy, and promises an exciting range
of courses in mathematics, from beginning, e.g. Number theory, to the advanced
e.g. Commutative and Homological Algebra. In addition, there are courses
in Russian language, economics and the history of sciences. The price of
the program is $3500 tution plus inexpensive room and board. There are
fellowships for this program as well.
Elizabeth Sanders is also pursuing a minor in International Affairs,
making the Math in Moscow Semester an outstanding enhancement of her undergraduate
education. |
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John Horton Conway to speak
April 9, 5pm Student Success Center.
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| March 2002. John Horton Conway, inventor of the Game of
Life, Surreal Numbers, and a wealth of other interesting and ingenious
pieces of mathematics will give the 2002 Steltson Lecture. This is a not-to-be-missed
lecture!
"Tangles, Knots and Numbers"
5:00 Tuesday - April 9, 2002 - Atlanta, GA
Student Success Center Auditorium
ABSTRACT: How can you understand the shape of a knot, or prove that
it really is knotted? What makes one knot different from another? I'll
describe some ways in which elementary arithmetic can help. Although we're
all familiar with knots, the theory of knots is a hard subject; it took
more than a century before mathematicians were even able to find a guaranteed
way to tell whether a string is knotted or not. However, some things are
easy...
This talk is intended for a general audience. |
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We are going to see "Proof" at
the Alliance Theatre, Sunday April 7, 2:30 pm
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| March 2002. The School of Mathematics is able to offer 100
tickets to the Sunday afternoon (2:30 pm), April 7th, performance of "Proof"
at the Alliance Theater. These tickts are for $33.00 seats in the orchestra,
and will be partially underwritten for all undergraduate and graduate Math
majors, as well as reduced for the faculty and staff of Math.
Each math person will be able to purchase up to 2 tickets for the performance
at the following prices:
undergraduate Math majors - $15.00 @
Math graduate students - $17.00 @
Math faculty and staff - $27.00 @
Beginning next Monday, February 25, tickets will be available
for purchase from Ms. Genola Turner in 218B, anytime between 7:30 am and
4:30 pm, except during her lunch hour (1:30 pm - 2:30 pm).
She can accept checks made out to the Georgia Tech Foundation or cash.
First come, first served. In addition, the director of the play, Ms.
Susan Booth,(also the new artistic director for the Alliance) has agreed
to meet with us on April 4, the Thursday before we see the play, at 11:00
am to talk about the work itself and this production.
"Proof", a Pulitzer Prize winning play by David Auburn, has had a long
successful run in New York City. A synopsis of the play follows:
"Proof" is the story of an enigmatic young woman, Catherine, her manipulative
sister, their brilliant father, and an unexpected suitor. They are all
pieces of the puzzle in the search for the truth behind a mysterious mathematical
proof. On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine, a young woman
who has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert,
must deal with the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire, and with the
attentions of Hal, a former student of her father's who hopes to find valuable
work in the 103 notebooks that Robert left behind.
What Hal discovers in an old notebook is a brilliant mathematical result
that tests the sisters' kinship as well as the romantic feelings growing
between Catherine and Hal. As Catherine confronts Hal's affections and
Claire's plans for her life, she struggles to solve the most perplexing
problem of all: How much of her father's madness - or genius - will she
inherit? This poignant drama about love and reconciliation unfolds on the
back porch of a house in Chicago's Hyde Park. |
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More News from Semester Abroad
in Budapest
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| March 2002. David Eger, is at the Semester Abroad in Budapest,
with a special emphasis on Mathematics. He writes about one lecture in
algebra, delivered by Have I told you about Csaba? It's great, he did a
proof of maximal n roots in a polynomial over an integral domain in the
period of about fifteen minutes by running through the theorem that any
polynomial over a ring has at most n roots (a fallacious proof, as there
are many roots of the polynomial x^2+1 over the division ring of quaternions),
saying at every step in the proof "Fine?! Fine" and all of us nodding along,
trying to keep up, vaguely remembering something similar from our past,
and then upon completion, pointing out that the theorem was obviously not
true, and quizzing us on what steps in his proof were wrong - it was great!
I've never had a professor strike home so well the preconditions for
a theorem. It was great. You should come to Budapest and enjoy this program
- it's a chance to romp around Europe and learn from really neat mathematicians,
and live with math geeks for a semester. And best of all, all of the courses
count towards your requirements! (Aren't you glad you added Math as a second
major?) |
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Mel Slugbate to speak on Real
Estate in Hyperbolic Space, March 21, Skiles 249, 4:30pm
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| February 2002. The "infamous"
Mel Slugbate, Real Estate Broker, will speak in the School of Mathematics
Colloquium on March 21, Skiles room 249 at 4:30 pm. Cookies and Tea are
at 4 pm in the Math lounge.
Mel Slugbate, of Slugbate and Mossbutter Real Estate Agency, sends us
this description of his talk: Have you found the newe investment climate
a bit on the chilly side? Nervous about stacks, bonds and mutal funds?
Afraid of risky investments in Euclidean space? Then real estate in hyperbolic
space is for you.
We will discuss the enormous potential of this new investment opportunity
and describe the many fascinating properties of hyperbolic space that make
it such an attractive place to live. This is the financial equivalent of
the 1980s junk bonds. Done miss it! Bring your checkbook and credit references!
No previous math or real estate background assumed! Recommend faculty and
students alike! Rober Egert says "two fingers up!"
Mr. Slugbate's talk is sponsored by his brother-in-law, Colin Adams,
of Williams College. |
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Nicholas Bronn Wins Cambridge
Scholarship
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February 2002. Nick
Bronn has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue graduate study
in Mathematics and Physics at
Cambridge University, England.
A GT press release on the award is
here.
Nick graduated Georgia Tech with several degrees, a BS in Mathematics,
a BS in Physics and a Masters in Electrical Engineering. He was readily
identifiable as the guy with blue and then blond hair. Whats more,
he had the highest genus of any math major. (Sorry Rick P.
You lose on this count. ;-))
Another GT undergrad, Jay Silver, has also won this scholarship.
Both were also finalists for a Churchill scholarship. Jay Silver
will pursue a MPhil in computers, speech, text and internet technology.
Besides getting an excellent undergraduate education at Georgia Tech,
both also got support from GT in their preparations for these awards.
The GT Graduate School offices provide help in writing the applications
and in giving mock interviews to those who advance in the competitions.
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Get your "@math.gatech.edu" computer
accounts here!!
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February 2002. For those majors who were at the VIGRE
site visit, you asked for it, and here it is. You can get a
"@math.gatech.edu" account here.
Math majors (both applied math and discrete math) will be allowed to
use the School of Mathematics computer resources upon request. Any
such student who is interested in having an account in the math.gatech.edu
domain must come by Skiles 155 and present a photo id. They must
sign and abide by our standard user agreement. Then they will get
their username and password. These accounts will expire (with warning)
approximately every 6 months. They can be renewed provided the student
is still majoring in math.
The computing facilities are great. Enjoy!
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Professors Basu and Ghrist win
CAREER awards
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Febuary 2002. Professors Saugata
Basu and Robert
Ghrist have been awarded CAREER awards by the National Science Foundation.
Congratulations to both. These are great honors for these two.
Here is the lead
paragraph from the description of the program.
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide
activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious
awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports
the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are
most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st
century. CAREER awardees will be selected on the basis of creative
career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education
within the context of the mission of their institution. Such plans should
build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research
and education. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from new faculty
members at all CAREER eligible institutions. |
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David Eger sends word from Budapest
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January 2002. David Eger, double major in computing
and applied math, is attending the
Semester Abroad in Budapest. This program has a special emphasis
in mathematics. David writes:
BSM is outstanding! Highly reccommended for Math majors......Budapest
is wonderful! They're using Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis for
their Measure theory course and my goodness -- it is one of the most
beautiful texts I have ever seen!
For more information about David, go
here.
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Patty Pichardo's Student paper
wins prize at Annual Meeting
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| January 2002. Patty Pichardo, and two other
undergraduates in California, presented a student paper at the American
Math Society's annual meeting in San Diego CA. The paper was given
one of 10 prizes, out of 90 papers presented. Way to go.
The paper was the result of their work at an Research Experience for
Undergrads held every summer at a University in Puerto Rico.
Their paper concerned a rather surprising lemma in algebraic geometry due
to Sturmfles. It concerns a graph G, the set of spanning trees T
of G and the set of edges E of G. Consider the polynomial rings
R(T) and R(E), so R(T) is the ring of polynomials whose variables
are the spanning trees T. Likewise, R(E) is the ring of polynomials
in the variables E. Consider the map f which sends each
spanning tree T to the product of the edges in T. This map extends
to a ring homorphism from R(T) to R(E). The surprising fact is that
the kernel of f consists only of second degree polynomials in T.
The paper presents certain improvements of that lemma.
The REU that Patty attended is held every year, and has a special emphasis
on recruting Hispanic students. |
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VIGRE/GT Funded!
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December 2001. The School of Mathematics VIGRE grant is
to be funded by the National Science Foundation.
This grant will provide funds for Postdoctral Fellowships, Graduate
Student Fellowships
and Research Experience for Undergraduates.
What does the last part mean? Follow this link
to find out. |
