OFF ON A TANGENT
A Fortnightly Electronic Newsletter from the Hope College Department of Mathematics
September 7, 2005 Vol. 4, No. 1
http://www.math.hope.edu/newsletter.html


Hope Floats Kegger scheduled for tomorrow

Join the mathematics faculty and fellow math students for root beer floats on the covered walkway of VanderWerf Hall (outside the lecture halls) on Thursday, September 8, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.. Enjoy a tasty beverage and participate in our special “Root Beer Tricks and Trivia” competition. You may win a valuable prize!


A note from our new professor, Nathan Tintle

Hi everyone!  My wife Lisa and I are very excited to move to Holland and join the Hope College community.  Most recently we were living in Somerset, NJ, where Lisa was a second grade teacher and I was teaching statistics as an adjunct professor while completing my Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  My Ph.D. dissertation considered a new hypothesis test for analyzing genetic (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) data.  But, I've also been consulting for the last three years on a World Health Organization mental health survey that was done in the country of Ukraine.  In addition, I'm currently wrapping up a project analyzing survey data from Reformed Church in America (RCA) churches on the East Coast.

But, statistics isn't the only thing that I enjoy doing!  In fact, Lisa and I really enjoy being outdoors.  Lisa and I met while working at RCA Camp Warwick in New York, where we led backpacking, rock climbing, and canoe trips.  We still enjoy doing those things today, although its tougher and tougher to find the time.  One reason is that we just purchased our first home, and despite the time it takes, we are both enjoying replacing, fixing, and maintaining things around the house.

Here at Hope I am looking forward to continuing the research I mentioned above, as well as spending more time teaching, which is what I really love to do!  Once in a while, Lisa and I might even make it up to the U.P. (correct use of Michigan lingo?) for some outdoor recreation.

(Editor's note:  Prof. Tintle did get the U.P. lingo correct.  Now who is going to tell him that he is a troll?)



What I did on my summer vacation

You might think that the math faculty sit around all summer and think great thoughts.  While this might be somewhat true, they were involved in other activities.  The following is a synopsis of the adventures of some of the faculty from this past summer.

Nathan Tintle bought a house and moved to Holland from New Jersey.  A week after he moved in, his house was TP'd.  Nothing says welcome home like a tree full of toilet paper!  When not packing and unpacking, he spent a week in Northwest Iowa with one side of the family and another week in Vermont with the other.  In both places he enjoyed canoeing, jet skiing, and hiking.  He also worked on preparing a few papers for publication.

Mark Pearson worked with three students on a research project which he described as a blast.  He says they were the best research students he has ever worked with.  He went to a conference in Albuquerque where he also enjoyed some hiking in the mountains.  After that trip, he headed for the north shore of Lake Superior to cool off.  Since his return to Holland, he has started a project of continually rearranging his office.

As chair of the department, Darin Stephenson spent May catching up on the work that he put off for the past nine months.  He spent June and July working with two research students on a geometric probability problem.  They presented some of their results in Grand Rapids.  He also managed to spend some time working on his book for the Multivariable II class and preparing it for possible publication.  In August, he was finally able to get away on a family trip to Kentucky and Wilmington, North Carolina.

John Stoughton took his motorcycle on the annual Route 66 road rally from Chicago to Santa Monica in June.  On the way back, he traveled through Yellowstone National Park where he visited with Hope grad Sara Tatge McCarty who was working at the park.  In July, he and his wife took a trip to the Canadian Rockies.

Mary DeYoung went out to Northwest Iowa to help her mom celebrate her 80th birthday.  On the way back, she spent a week with her husband's family in Wisconsin.  She also spent a week working at a church camp in New York.  Along with a student, she updated course material for Math 205.  She also managed to play lots of tennis during the summer.

Aaron Cinzori’s wife gave birth to their daughter Gwendolyn on March 23.  As a result, Aaron is a little fuzzy as to what exactly he did during the last part of the spring semester and the first part of the summer.  He did remember giving a talk at Grand Valley in June that was titled, "Spiraling to my Doom."  (Which was not about having a newborn in the house.)  He spent most of his summer taking care of Gwendolyn and her five year-old brother Isaac.

Airat Bekmetjev taught Math 210 during May term.  The day after that course was concluded, his research students arrived.  He spent the next two months working with them on pebbling.  They developed a java applet for this which can be found at http://math.hope.edu/bekmetjev/pebbling/.
(Note: The applet require Java 1.4.2_08 or higher and it may take awhile (about 10 sec.) before it starts.)  He also attended a workshop at Ohio State with one of his students.  Back at home, he and his family tried to get to the beach as often as possible.

Janet Andersen, who spent the last year at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, drove back to Holland in May via Yellowstone.  Once back, she worked with six research students on a couple of different projects in mathematical biology.  She also reviewed proposals for the National Science Foundation.  She did manage to get away to Stratford, Ontario to see a couple of plays.  Her daughter's move from New Orleans to New York a couple of weeks ago was hastened as she tried to stay a step ahead of Hurricane Katrina

Tim Pennings administered the REU (Research for Undergraduates) program for the math department.  He attended a seminar on politics and religion put on by the Crossroads Project, had jury duty for one day, and helped his folks celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  In June, Tim took a trip to Utah and Idaho where he enjoyed hiking and mountain biking.  While there, he met up with Hope grad Brain Yurk and managed to show that his dog Elvis had skills well beyond those of Brian's Border Collies.  He also managed to get away to the Upper Peninsula to the “north forty.”

Todd Swanson spent May term teaching GEMS 100.  He spent the next month working on updating class materials for Math 210, cleaning his office, and avoiding other work.  In June he took his family on a trip to Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.  They ended up in the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia and spent four long days driving through northern prairie lands on the way back home.  He spent most of the rest of the summer running kids around from one activity to another, but did manage to write a book review for a mathematics journal.


Problem of the Fortnight

It's only the second week of the semester, but most of you have probably already nestled into your "assigned" seats for the term.  We kick off the problem solving season this year with a seating rearrangement problem.

There are 25 seats in a certain classroom, arranged in five rows of five seats per row.  Each student is to change seats by going to one of the four nearest seats -- the seat directly behind, directly in front, immediately to the left or immediately to the right of the seat he or she is currently using.  Sitting on the floor isn't an option -- and neither is sitting in someone's lap!  Determine whether a rearrangement following these rules is possible, starting with a full class of 25 students, and explain your answer.

Write your solution on the back of one of your discarded fall schedules -- you know, the ones you filled out before the last round of schedule shuffling in the Drop-Add period -- and drop it in the Problem of the Fortnight Slot outside Dr. Pearson's office (VWF 212) by 3:00 p.m. on Friday, September 16.


Math in News: Electrolux, Electolux! ...um, I mean Eureka, Eureka!

As odd as it seems, Archimedes who is probably best known running through Syracuse naked yelling Eureka!! Eureka!!, is making news these days.  A fragment of one of his essays, called the Stomachion, was recently purchased at Christie's auction house in New York for the modest sum of $2 million, and its return to daylight after a long history of abuse and intrigue has excited mathematicians and historians alike. 

When the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204, monks tried to erase the mathematical text of the Stomachion as best they could, and they reused the beginnings of the text in a Christian prayer book.  A parchment that has been scraped and reused like this is known as a palimpsest.  When Danish mathematical historian Johan Ludvig Heiberg unearthed the Stomachion palimpsest in a monastery library in Istanbul at the beginning of the 20th century, he set about trying to decipher the underlying script, and what he discovered was amazing: the essay appears to describe a puzzle that might have been used as a children's toy.  But something else puzzled Heiberg: Why would Archimedes, whose other mathematical works were truly monumental, have spent time on something so frivolous as a children's toy?  Before other scholars could examine the faded script, the Stomachion palimpsest was stolen and disappeared until 1998.

Now that the Stomachion palimpsest has been rediscovered, mathematicians and historians believe they have found an answer to Heiberg's question.  To find out why the great mathematician Archimedes was so interested in this children's puzzle, and to read more of the fascinating history of the Stomachion palimpsest, please visit http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040515/bob9.asp.


Got a Math Question?

Ask Elvis ...

... email him at elvis@hope.edu

Dear Friends,

I hope you all had a great break and were able to stay cool even during the dog days of summer.  (Perhaps is should be the Elvis days of summer!)  I know that I had trouble keeping cool.  Do you know where the term "dog days" comes from?  It seems the ancient Romans noticed that Sirius (the dog star and one of the brightest stars in the sky) rose and set with the sun during the warmest time of year.  They assumed that the star was helping the sun heat up the earth and termed this time of year as the dog days of summer.  While it is not true that Sirius was heating up the earth, the name stuck.

Cats also have things named for them you know.  For example, here are a few:
Well enough about cats.  I had one question to answer for this newsletter.  If you have a question about math, about Hope, about cats, or anything else that I may help you with, sent me an email at elvis@hope.edu and I will do my best to give you a response.

 

Dear Elvis,
I know this isn't a math question, but it seems that perhaps you might know the answer.  The math department is located in VanderWerf, yet when you walk down the hall to class you are in VanZoeren.  Why is it that this one building has two names? 
Konfused in Kollen


Dear Konfused,
I guess that while it is easy to change some things about a building, it is hard to change the name.  These buildings were once two separate buildings.  VanZoeren was built in 1961 as a library after a gift was given by Gerrit VanZoeren, a local chemist and Hope graduate.  VanderWerf was built in 1964 and was named the Physics Mathematics Hall.  The name was changed to VanderWerf Hall in in 1981 in honor of Hope's eighth president Calvin VanderWerf.

In 1989 Hope had its own version of Extreme Makeover -- College Edition.  The library had already moved into their new building and a group of builders headed by Ty VanPennington gutted and transformed VanZoeren and VanderWerf into the gem of a building that now serves the college.  The faculty, of course, were whisked away to Disney World to wait out the amazing transformation.
Elvis


One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don't know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter."

 ~ Lewis Carroll 1832-1898