| Date |
Speaker(s) |
Title(s) |
Abstract |
| Sept. 14 |
Jesscia Sidman
|
"Problem
solving using the Pigeon-hole Principle" |
jFund problems
and shameless advertisting for the Tuesday lunchtime problem-solving
seminar. Contact Jessica Sidman, jsidman@mtholyoke.edu, if you'd
like to join.
|
| Oct. 5 |
Student panel
|
"What I Did on
My Summer Vacation" |
Everything
you ever wanted to know about
summer experiences (research and internships) by a panel of
experts. MHC math/stat majors who participated in summer research
programs and internships in summer 2005 will describe their
experiences, including how they found their opportunities and what
preparation they required. Come with questions about how you can
find a good summer opportunity to use and expand your mathematics
and/or statistics background. |
| Oct. 12 |
Brittany
Bannish '06
|
"Integration
Revisited: Time scale
calculus and the Henstock-Kurzweil Delta Integra." |
Her
talk will
focus on the Henstock-Kurzweil delta integral (HK-delta integral) on
unbounded time scales. She will begin by defining time scales
(non-empty closed subsets of the real numbers), and give a brief
overview of time scale calculus. The theory of time scales was
introduced in 1988 by Stefan Hilger in order to unify continuous and
discrete analysis, and in her talk, she will show how time scale
calculus and the KH-delta integral allow us to integrate functions that
are not necessarily Riemann or Lebesgue integrable. She will
conclude with the novel result that the Monotone Convergence Theorem
holds for the HK-delta integral on unbounded time scales. |
| Oct. 19 |
Mihaela
Krasteva '06 and Michelle
Lastrina '06 |
"k-Harold and
k-Audrey " and
"Mice,
Cancer
Treatment, and Mathematics, aka Building a Pharmacokinetic Model for
the Anti-tumor Agent Docetaxel."
|
Michelle
will talk on
"k-Harold and k-Audrey." The pair of graphs known as Harold and
Audrey have the following characteristics: they are
non-isomorphic, regular,
md2, cospectral, and they have equal Ihara zeta functions. She
will explain this terminology and present an infinite set of pairs of
graphs with these same characteristics and show why this infinite set
maintains these characteristics. Mihaela's talk is about
(*)
How an Economics and
Statistics double major
ended up doing biomedical summer research, (*) What Applied
Mathematics and Chemical
Engineering have to do with cutting-edge cancer research, (*) How
first-order ordinary differential equations
and basic knowledge of physiology are used to create an overall drug
profile
and to determine the optimal drug dosage and regimen. |
Oct. 21
|
Alan
'Sokal, Prof. Physics, NYU
|
"Chromatic
Polynomials, Potts Models, and All That"
5:00 p.m. in 305 Kendade
4:30 tea in 416 Clapp
|
Abstract:
The chromatic polynomial, introduced by Birkhoff in 1912,
counts the number of ways of properly coloring the vertices of a graph
G with a given number of available colors. The same polynomial
arises in statistical physics, in connection with the Potts model
(1952). The complex zeros of these polybomials are of great
interest both to combinatorialists and to statistical
mechanicians. Indeed, as Yang and Lee showed in 1952, the complex
zeros of the partition function give information about phase
transitions in the underlying physical system. I begin by giving
an itroduction to all these problems. I then sketch some recent
results and some open problems. This talk is intended to be
understandable to both mathematicians and physicists; no prior
knowledge of either graph theory or statistical mechanics is required.
|
Oct. 26
|
Hilary Spring '06
|
Thermal
Imaging of Circular Inclusions Within a
Two-Dimensional Region |
The
ability to study the
interior of an object without destroying it is an
important industrial tool. We use the steady state heat equation to
access the interior of a two-dimensional region of known material.
Using only boundary information for the region, we provide a method by
which the center, radius, and transmission constant of a singular,
circular inclusion can be found. |
Oct. 30
|
"Proof "
|
Pleasant Street Theater,
4:45 show
|
Joint event with the UMass Math
Club: see the movie "Proof" at the Pleasant Street Theater in
Northampton, followed by dinner at Fitzwilly's. For pre-purchased
tickets, a seat at dinner, and/or help with transportation, sign up by
Friday 3:00 pm. in
department office 415A Clapp.
|
Nov. 2
|
Deptartment
faculty
|
Information session on 300-level
courses, spring 2006
|
Come learn about 300-level courses
in mathematics and statistics for spring 2006, including both MHC
courses and offerings in the Valley.
|
Nov 9
|
J.A.
Yorke
(film)
|
Fractals and Chaos in Simple
Physical Systems, as revealed by the Computer
|
This video features studies of
three important kinds of physical systems: the swinging pendulum, the
double well Duffing oscillator, and the laser beam osciillator.
For example, the study of a swinging pendulum includes extraordinarily
complicated "fractal" sets. Using the computer's zoom feature,
the video focuses on such fractal sets and displays their beauty and
complexity.
|
Nov 9
8pm
Amherst Books
|
Ed Burger,
Prof. Math.
Williams College
|
Coincidences, Chaos, and all that
Math Jazz
|
Williams College math professor
Edward Burger will
give what promises to be an amusing talk about
mathematics based
on his new entertainingly "irreverent" book,
"Coincidences,
Chaos, & All That Math Jazz". Burger is also author of
many serious books
on math, including "Exploring the Number Jungle: A
Journey into
Diophantine Analysis", "The Heart of Mathematics: An
Invitation to
Effective Thinking", & "Making Transcendence Transparent: An
Intuitive Approach to Classical Transcendental Number Theory".
see:
http://www.amherstbooks.com/Events/eventsNovember2005.shtml#A9
|
Nov 16
|
William Silver, Senior Fellow
and VP Cognex Corp.
|
The Limits of Mechanical Thinking:
A Tale of Three Numbers
|
I will explore the practical and
theoretical limits of
mechanical thinking (what a computer can compute) by considering three
specific
whole numbers. Each is defined
unambiguously by an English sentence, and each represents a challenge
to find
the number from its definition. The
first number is easy to find, the second is difficult, and the third is
impossible. The first definition appeared mysteriously on billboards
around the
country about a year ago, and those that found the number were led to a
web
site that turned out to be run by Google. This
number is fairly easy to find by computer.
The second definition concerns the
number of solutions to
the popular Sudoku puzzles. The number
is far too difficult to find by hand. Although
a simple mechanical counting of solutions
by computer would
find the number eventually, in practice such an approach is completely
beyond
the reach of even the fastest computers. The
number has recently been found by a careful
human analysis of the
symmetries of the puzzle.
The third definition specifies a
number that is
theoretically impossible for any computer program to find.
To find it, one would first have to solve
nearly every open problem in number theory. Conversely,
if we knew this one number, we could
solve nearly every open
problem in number theory by purely mechanical means.
|
Nov 30
|
Lily
Davidoff
'06 and Heather Harrington
(UMass '06) |
Effects of Lifestyle Choices on
Atherosclerosis: A Mathematical Approach.
|
Lily and Heather will speak on
their joint research at
MTBI/Los Alamos this summer.
|
Nov 30
|
Amanda Folsom, UCLA
|
Beginning a Life in
Mathematics: a doctoral student's perspective on graduate school
and beyond
|
At Amherst College: pizza at 6:00
p.m. in Seeley Mudd 208, followed by the presentation at 6:30 in Seeley
Mudd 207.
|
Dec 14
|
Everyone
|
End-of-term party!
|
Pizza, beverages AND special
goodies.
|
