Off on a Tangent
A Fortnightly Electronic Newsletter from the Hope College Department of Mathematics
   April 1, 2008 Vol. 6, No. 12  
http://www.math.hope.edu/newsletter.html


Lithio and Gordon receive prestigious Fields Meddle
 
Daniel Lithio, a junior from Downers Grove, Illinois, and Forrest Gordon, a junior from Rockford, were recently informed that they have been selected as 2008 Fields Meddlists.  The award was given for their paper, “Dysfunctional analysis of the convergence effect on gray adhesive strips and elastic white orbs.” They will present their paper later this month at the induction ceremony for the Hope College chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon.

Fields Awards Committee chair, Dr. Alec Smart, stated, “I was extremely impressed with the work done by Lithio and Gordon.  It is not often that we see such ingenuity in undergraduate students.”  He went on to say that, “Their continued attendance at all the remaining colloquia for the remainder of their time as undergraduates will be key to their future success.”


Prof. Pennings has Ph.D. is revoked

Professor Tim Pennings had his Ph.D. revoked by Iowa State University last week.  In a review of dissertations from the University, it was found that a number of those submitted between 1985 and 1990 were written with margins of 1 inch instead of the required 2.5 centimeters.  University graduate school dean Helen Krump stated, “The conversion from the English to the metric system took place here at Iowa State in 1985.   Since that time a valid dissertation must have its margins in alignment with this new system.”  She also said, “It seems that a few of our graduate students in the late 80s were still using old rulers (in addition to old typewriters) and they never made the switch.”

One of the consequences of Prof. Pennings losing his Ph.D. is that all of the classes he’s taught at Hope are (like his Ph.D.) no longer valid.  The registrar’s office is currently going through old transcripts and deleting all credit for courses taught by Pennings since he arrived on campus in 1988.  Hope’s registrar Jon Huisken, told us, “You would think that this would be a big problem, but we really haven’t found too many students that actually passed one of Pennings’ courses in the last twenty years.  I don't think there will be too many ramifications from this unfortunate situation.”


Math Club T-Shirts are delayed again

This year’s math club T-shirts have been back ordered for over three weeks now.  In the meantime, math club members have created their own attire to be used during their meetings.  Club president Dan Lithio stated, “We are making due in a tough situation.”  He went on to say, “I’m just glad some of our members were able to get a little sun during spring break.”

It was discovered that the ink that was to be used on the shirts was tainted with lead.  The ink originally came from China as part of that country’s “Get the Lead Out” initiative in which they had planned to export all the lead in China to countries around through their paints and inks.  Those plans have now been stopped by the Paint and Ink Suppliers Society. 


To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.

~ Anne Rice
Off on a Tangent