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Friday, November 2, 2001
| SUMS talk, Monday, November 12.
-- 7:00PM |
Jason Nordhaus and David Etlinger
Monday, November 12, 2001
7:00PM Hylan 901
Jason and David will be speaking on their REU experience at the Los
Alamos Lab Summer school for physics. Title and abstract will be posted
soon.
Pizza served at 7PM in Math Lounge
Posted by Inga Johnson on 11/2/01; 4:20 PM
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Wednesday, October 3, 2001
| SUMS talk, Monday, November 12.
-- 7:00PM |
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The Department of Mathematics, Meliora Weekend Invited Address:
Come and hear about the mathematics behind the work of M.C. Escher and Marjorie Rice!!
"Ingenious Amateurs"
Doris Schattschneider
Friday, October 12, 4:30 -5:30 pm
CS 209
Welcome to the SUMS website 2001! Our first pizza party
and talk for the Fall semester 2001
will be Wednesday, October 17, in Hylan 901, the MATH LOUNGE. Pizza
will be served at 7pm and the talk follows at 8pm.
Professor Ken McMurdy, a graduate of U of R, will be
speaking. His abstract can be found below. Everyone is welcome!
Come and find out about all the fun activities planned for this school year.
We hope to have 3-4 pizza parties and talks per semester,
and a bowling night versus the Physics Club! Also, mark you calendars for the Mathematics Department
Meliora Weekend Activities!! Hope to see you there.
How and Why to Add Infinite Points to the xy-plane
Prof. Ken McMurdy, University of Rochester
Time: 8:00PM
Date: Wednesday, October 17
Place: Hylan -- 9th floor MATH LOUNGE, rm 901
Math students consistently ask about infinity and often want to somehow
include infinity as a bona fide number into their calculations.
Unfortunately it is very hard to include infinity as a number and still
maintain any rigorous meaning whatsoever.
Including infinity as a ``place'', however, is something which one can do in a
very rigorous way.
While adding just one ``infinity'' works for the real line, the most natural
thing to do with the plane is to add many different ``infinities''
corresponding to the different ways that a point can leave the plane.
One reason for doing this is that the usual (affine) plane is not compact, so
nasty things can happen behind the scenes and be hidden.
The projective plane is compact, so there is no place for the nasty things to
hide.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2001
| Congratulations Class of 2001 Math Graduates!!!! |
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There were 41 graduating seniors in mathematics and statistics this year, many of them with double majors: 2001 Math and Stat Depts Graduation list
Below is a sampling of what the class of 2001 will be doing next year. Follow the links
for more information.
- Laurie Krantz
- attending Purdue University, working towards my MS in Speech and Language Pathology
- David Lagakos
- working at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as a Research Assistant
- Brock Tweedie
- I'm starting graduate school at UC Berkeley next year, in pursuit of my Ph.D in physics. i'm planning on specializing in high energy particle physics, probably theoretical.
Brock will be working at SLAC over the summer. Brock shared the physics department's Flagg prize with Albert Wang.
- Albert Wang
- Albert will be studying classical saxophone at the New England Convervatory of Music in Boston next year and is planning to apply to physics graduates schools once he has his Master of Music degree.
- Albert received the Stoddard prize for the best senior thesis in physics and shared the physics departments's Flagg prize with Brock Tweedie.
... and also this...
SUMS member and math major David Etlinger '03 has received a prestigious national Goldwater Scholarship!
Way to go David
... and this...
SUMS member and PolySci major Dustin Tingly has received the Joseph P. O'Hern Scholarship for travel and study in Europe at the Phi Beta Kappa ceremony. Starting in January I will be going to work in an international security and policy studies think tank. I will also be doing field research on European environmental policy, which is part of a larger project on international environmental policies. Pretty exciting.
Posted by Michael Gage on 5/15/01; 1:37:38 PM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Thursday, April 26, 2001
| SUMS members' Summer Activities |
This is a preliminary list of SUMS members' academically related activities that have been sent to me so far. I know that there are other SUMS members also involved in REU's, internships and other activities, so please e-mail me (gage@math.rochester.edu) and let me know. It's nice to know what other students are doing, and it is very helpful to other students who may be thinking of participating next summer.
Posted by Michael Gage on 4/26/01; 10:43:21 AM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Saturday, April 14, 2001
Monday, April 9, 2001
| S.U.M.S elections and a talk on p-adic numbers and pizza |
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There will be a meeting at 7PM, this Thursday, April 12 in the Undergraduate Mathematics Lounge (9th floor of Hylan Building) to elect officers for S.U.M.S for next year. Send nominations to Andrew Blechman ( andrew@math.rochester.edu ). As usual there will be pizza. At 8PM, after pizza, elections and discussion, Michael Knapp will give a talk on p-adic numbers. (See below.)
A Trip to the Fun House: the World of p-Adic numbers
Prof. Michael Knapp, University of Rochester
Time: 8:00PM
Date: Thursday, April 12
Place: Hylan -- 11th floor
Have you ever stood in front of one of those fun house mirrors which
distort distances and perspectives? Imagine standing on a number line and
looking at one of those mirrors. You're standing on the number 0, and the
number 3125 appears to be very close to you. But the numbers 1, 3124 and
3126 all appear to be much farther away from you, and all are the same
distance away. The number 1/3125 is even farther away!
This is the way distances can look in the world of p-adic numbers.
Despite this strange notion of distance, p-adic numbers can be used to
help answer questions about the "normal" world of numbers. For example,
they can be used to help determine whether some equations have solutions
in which the variables are all integers.
This talk will be a brief introduction to this brave new world of
p-adic numbers. First, I will talk about trying to determine whether an
equation has any integer solutions, and this will lead to a very informal
definition of the p-adics. Then I will show a more formal way in which
they can be defined, which will explain the strange notion of distance
mentioned above. Finally, if we have time, I will talk a little more
about how the p-adics and "normal" numbers relate to each other, and also
mention a few interesting theorems about solving equations where the
variables are p-adic numbers.
Posted by Michael Gage on 4/9/01; 2:00:46 PM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Monday, February 5, 2001
Saturday, February 3, 2001
| Ben Chan is a winner at AMS/MAA meeting. |
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Benjamin Chan (University of Rochester, REU and MASS 2000) is a winner of the Undergraduate Student Poster Session in New Orleans, January 2001. His poster "Estimation of the Period of a Simple Continued Fraction" was among three very highly ranked posters.
The poster represents research work that he did while attending the MASS and REU programs at Pennsylvania State University.
Congratulations, Ben!
Posted by Michael Gage on 2/3/01; 2:32:37 PM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Sunday, January 28, 2001
| REU news |
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Hi,
Just a reminder that the first deadlines for the REU programs are February 15 or so.
For other programs the deadlines are end of February or March. Here is a list of deadlines
for SOME of the programs: REU deadlines
and general background information is at REU FAQ. There are also links on this last page to point you towards other REU's which are available -- I have not listed all of the available REU's by any means. Get paid to study! -- plan to attend an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) this summer.
I've just found out that the deadline for the Research in Industrial Projects for Students Program (RIPS) 2001 at UCLA ( http://www.ipam.ucla.edu ) is March 1, 2001. This program has slots for everyone from high school students to faculty -- so it would be good one to apply to if you are 1st year and interested in this kind of research experience.
Julia Eaton went to Eastern Tennessee on an REU after her sophomore year. She is applying again for this summer.
Last year I applied to a mathematics REU for the first time. Uncertain
that I would be able to get in to one, I applied to thirteen. I believe
that this was a good choice, because I got in to 3. I wasn't too sure I
could get in to one at all because I had recently changed from a physics
major to a math major, and I hadn't taken very many mathematics courses.
Also, I found that it was a good idea to ask for recommendations *early*
because some of the deadlines are early, and professors are very busy,
so it is good to give them time to write. Also, it is important to
remind the professors in case they might have forgotten--again, they're
busy.
In terms of my experience at the discrete math/probability REU (at
Eastern Tennessee State University, formerly at Michigan Tech, run by
Anant Godbole), I think I learned quite a bit. My advisor, Anant, chose
people of a variety of backgrounds and experiences--people who have
already done math research and taken graduate courses to people (like
me), who have had very little experience in mathematics. I did have some
research experience having participated in a physics REU the previous
summer. He let us choose our project from a list of about 14 that he
decided on. They ranged in subject material and the level of experience
in mathematics needed to do the project. I choose one of the "remedial"
ones in probability since I had never taken a course in discrete math,
graph theory, or probability. I worked with another student with a
similar level of experience as my own and also endeavored to read "a
first course in probability" by sheldon ross. The project was
challenging and fun. My advisor was also very good. It was difficult,
however, to jump into an REU program and do research without any
preparatory instruction in the subject. Other REU programs actually set
aside a 1-2 week period expressly for the purpose of acquainting the
student with the material. I think that this would be very helpful.
Posted by Michael Gage on 1/28/01; 6:30:10 PM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Thursday, January 25, 2001
| Study abroad expo. |
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Freshmen, Sophomores, Come to the Expo!
The Center for Study Abroad and the Sophomore Committee are cosponsoring the
fifth annual College
Study Abroad Expo
THIS Friday, January 26
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Wilson Commons, Hirst Lounge
This is something that every student, including science students, should at least consider. There is more information at Study abroad, and in particular information about studying mathematics for a semester in Budapest
Posted by Michael Gage on 1/25/01; 9:37:47 AM
from the dept.
Discuss
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| SUMS lecture -- February 7 |
Prof. Glenn Macdonald, Simon School of Business, University of Rochester
Wednesday, February 7, 2001
7:30PM Hylan 1101
Fixed Points, Firms and Stock Market Volitility
Abstract:
Game theory is a branch of mathematics that has proved to be an effective tool for the study of competition among firms. A key game theory concept, the notion of an equilibrium of a game, is defined in terms of the fixed point of a mapping. Examination of the structure of equilibria of games played by firms leads to the conclusion that firm value, e.g. the value of equities, should be highly variable in comparison to other observed features, e.g. the volume of output, price, etc. The presentation will present the basics of game theory, show the connection to fixed points, and derive results about volatility.
Posted by Michael Gage on 1/25/01; 9:32:22 AM
from the dept.
Discuss
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Monday, January 22, 2001
| RIPS |
Here is a different sort of summer research experience at UCLA. The summer program involves a working collaboration between faculty and students attending the summer institute at UCLA and industries which have interesting mathematical problems that need to be solved. It sounds like a really interesting experience in doing math in a non-academic environment. There is more info at RIPS and a mail address you can write to for more information.
Posted by Michael Gage on 1/22/01; 9:43:31 PM
from the dept.
Discuss
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