Upcoming Activities
Science Showcase
Monday, May 5, 10:00 am in the ASCI Lobby
Snacks will be served!
Come see our math majors present their capstones:
Terri Kimmel
Marc Morris-Rivera
Jessica Newville
Juan Ortiz
Graydon Pearson
Joseph Rower
Eric Wright
Recent Activities
Math Club Social at Dr King's house
Weekly CLU-CSUCI Joint Mathematics Seminars
2:45 pm Thursday, October 11th
Abstract:
Four houses are located so that they form the vertices of a square that has sides of length one mile. These neighbors want to connect their houses with a road of least length. What should the shape of the road be? We will discuss the answer to this problem, and then talk about how it is related to soap films (what you get when you dip a wire frame into soapy water) and a set of strange geometric shapes called minimal surfaces that appear in architecture, chemical bonding, minerals, and Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Along the way we will play with some soap films and generate computer images of minimal surfaces.
Abstract:
If the results of your election procedure can be realized as a matrix-vector product, then linear algebra can probably say something interesting about the way you are voting. In this talk, I'll describe some of the recent work that my students and I have been doing to better understand voting and voting paradoxes from an algebraic perspective. In particular, I'll talk about the natural yet eye-opening role that the symmetric group has played in our work to date.
Research Experiences for Undergraduates
It is time for my yearly reminder about summer REU (research experiences for undergraduates) programs. These are NSF supported. Information on all of these can be found at:
http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.cfm
There are also some other programs that are similar to REU sites. Information on these can be found at:
http://www.nsf.gov/mps/dms/oreulist.htm.
Most of these sites conduct research in one or two areas of mathematics and have five to ten participants each summer, but there is considerable variation in the structure of the programs. All the programs provide the participants with a stipend and possibly other support. Most programs are quite selective, but the number of applications that the programs receive varies greatly so some programs are far more selective than others. Application deadlines vary but the earliest ones are around February 15 and the latest ones are in April, with most of them in late February or early March.