Off on a Tangent
|
A Fortnightly Electronic
Newsletter from the Hope
College Department of Mathematics
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Tomorrow's
colloquium takes a look at voting and elections
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Title:
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Trouble in
Democracy: A Mathematical Look at Voting and Elections
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Speaker:
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Prof.
Jonathan Hodge, Hope College (and GVSU)
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Time:
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Thursday,
September 18 at
4:00 p.m.
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Place:
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VWF
104
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Abstract: Should George W. Bush have
won the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election? How did Jesse Ventura
become governor of Minnesota? Why do elections often leave so
many voters dissatisfied? And how are Ralph Nader and competitive
figure skating related?
In this talk, we will take a lighthearted look at some of the surprises
and paradoxes that can occur in seemingly democratic elections.
We'll use mathematics to analyze several recent elections and to
investigate the fairness of the voting systems used to decide their
outcomes. Along the way, we'll encounter a variety of mechanisms
for answering the age-old question of democracy: What do the
people want?
This talk will be accessible to anyone interested in voting and
democracy; no mathematical prerequisites are assumed.
Next
week's colloquium is on chord diagrams
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Title:
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The Vector
Space of Chord Diagrams
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Speaker:
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Dr. Mike
McDaniel, Aquinas College |
Time:
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Thursday,
September 25 at
4:00 p.m.
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Place:
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VWF
104
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Abstract:
The space of knot invariants of finite type has a dual space of chord
diagrams, mod the 4-term and 1-term relations. A chord diagram is an
oriented circle with some chords drawn in - easy to say, but
potentially nasty. This space retains much of its mystery and so it
serves as an excellent source of undergraduate and graduate level
research. Work here uses topology, combinatorics, algebra and linear
algebra.
If
you are interested in practicing Putnam and Mathematical Games type problems, please join us in the reading
room (VWF 222) Friday at 3:14
PM. We will begin with talking about the following problem:
A dart, thrown at random, hits a square target. Assuming that any two parts of the
target of equal area are
equally likely to be hit, find the probability that the point hit is nearer to the center than to any edge.
The
Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference is soon
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The Department of Mathematics at
UM-Dearborn will host
the eleventh annual Michigan Undergraduate
Mathematics Conference (MUMC) on Saturday, October 18, 2008. Hope
College will be taking a group of
students and faculty. They will
leave early in the day and return in the evening.
Undergraduate students will be giving
20-minute oral presentations on many areas of mathematics, statistics
or related disciplines. Such areas include undergraduate research
projects, interesting class projects, history of mathematics, or
expository talks on interesting mathematics. Students are also
encourage just to attend as there will be presentations on careers in
mathematics, information about mathematics graduate programs and REU
programs.
Students interested in
attending need to sign up with Prof. Darin Stephenson by Thursday, October 9
(he has a sign-up sheet
outside his office door, VWF 219). For more information about the conference visit the MUMC web page at
http://www-personal.umd.umich.edu/~remski/mumc/mumc08.htm.
Everybody's
blogging at me
|
Ever wonder what is so special about the
number 12,978,189? Well probably not. However, if you do
have such curiosities, the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) has
a new NumberADay blog. This website spotlights a different number
and some of its
interesting properties each day. The authors of the website are
also looking for comments and suggestions for numbers that could be
shared in cyberspace. The Number a Day blog can be found at http://maanumberaday.blogspot.com/.
The next meeting of the Math Club will be
Thursday, September 25 at 7:00 p.m. in VZN 274. Those interested
in joining the Math Club are certainly welcomed to attend and help the
club plan for some fun and interesting events for this year.
Things that are planned for this year include Problem of the Fortnight
solving sessions, intramural sports teams, Relay for Life, T-shirts,
trips to math conferences, community service opportunities, and much
more!
The
Problem of the Fortnight
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A minivan has two seats in front, a middle
seat with spaces for three people, and a back seat with spaces for four
people. Nine licensed drivers are going to ride in the van.
One insists on sitting in the front seat, another insists on
sitting in the middle seat, and a third insists on sitting in the back
seat. How many different seating arrangements satisfy everyone?
Write
your solution (not just the answer!) on the back of a picture of your
dream car, and drop it by Dr.
Pearson's office (VWF 212) by noon
on Friday, September 26.
As always, be sure
to write your name, the name(s) of your
professor(s), and your math class(es) on your solution (e.g. Vince
Van Go, Prof. Van Delay, Math 371).
Good luck, and have
fun!
Problem
Solvers of the Fortnight
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An old woman goes to the Holland Farmer's
Market and a truck runs over her basket of eggs and crushes them.
The driver offers to pay for the damages and asks her how many eggs she
brought. She doesn't remember the exact number, but when she had
taken them out two at a time, there was one egg left. The same
happened when she picked them out three, four, five and six at a
time. But when she took them out seven at a time, they came out
even (no eggs left) What is the smallest number of eggs she could
have had?
The
smallest number of eggs she could have had is 301. A solution by
Bobby Nash is posted on the bulletin board. When we took
the correct solutions out of the pile 7 at a time, there were three
left. When we took the correct solutions out of the pile 8 at a
time, there were two left. When we took them out 5 at a time,
there was one left, and when we took them out 6 at a time, they came
out evenly. How many correct solutions did we receive?
Congratulations to: Bobby Nash, Andrea Toren, Carl Worthy, Kristian
Cunningham, Jason Folkert, Emily Bauss, Dirk VanBruggen, Benjamin
Gorsky, Shane Kwapis, Leif Nelson, Zachary Mitchell, Laura Smallegan,
Carleen Dykstra, Lauren Miller, David Todd, Ben Bockstege, Brett
Kopinski, Kevin Browder, Ben Herrman, Brianna Osorie, Jori Niemann, Jon
Wielerga, Ashley Wortelboer, Jenny Barry, Ben Pelter, Rachel Immink,
Tim Nagi, Brian McLellan, Layne Fowler, Beth Heisel, Heather
Esfandiari, Alyssa Ambrose, Nicole Fongers, Lindsay Bienz, Brian Dess,
Nathan Graber, Nate, Kayla Lankheet, Daryl Andresen, Megan Shima,
Kelsey Moore, Mark Panaggio, Chelsea Miedema, Andrea Eddy, Ryan Sheets,
Cortney Kimmel, James Nichols, April Muske, Sarah Brower, Lindsey
Lawrence, Jack Lepira, Mindy Miner, Jessica Clouse, Matt Glahn,
Stephanie Pasek, Laine Klopfenstein, Bruce Kraay, Danielle Koetje, Tara
Hamming, Laura Shears, Lindsay Robbins, Kylie Topliff, Luc Leavenworth,
Scott DeClaire, Ashley Gruenberg and Thao Le. (There were 66
correct solutions!)
A
Matching Game Solutions
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In the last newsletter we gave a little
game to match the baby with the mathematics professor parent and here
are the answers.
Stephanie Edwards
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Baby #1 (Anna): "My dad is Prof.
Pearson. That's him right behind me."
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Nathan
Tintle
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Baby #2 (Levi):
"My dad is Prof. Tintle and I like to sleep."
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Mark
Pearson
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Baby #3 (Maya):
"My mom likes it when I sleep and she is Prof. Edwards."
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Coincidentally enough (or perhaps intentionally enough), the babies
were listed in their family's birth order: Baby #1 is Anna Pearson,
Mark and Karen's first child; Baby #2 is Levi Tintle, Nathan and Lisa's
second child; and Baby #3 is Maya Edwards Parker, Stephanie and
Darren's third. None of them has a preference for where they sit
in minivans.
The human mind
has never invented a labor-saving machine equal to
algebra.
Author Unknown
A minivan has two seats in front, a middle
seat with spaces for three people, and a back seat with spaces for four
people. Nine licensed drivers are going to ride in the van.
One insists on sitting in the front seat, another insists on
sitting in the middle seat, and a third insists on sitting in the back
seat. How many different seating arrangements satisfy everyone?
An old woman goes to the Holland Farmer's
Market and a truck runs over her basket of eggs and crushes them.
The driver offers to pay for the damages and asks her how many eggs she
brought. She doesn't remember the exact number, but when she had
taken them out two at a time, there was one egg left. The same
happened when she picked them out three, four, five and six at a
time. But when she took them out seven at a time, they came out
even (no eggs left) What is the smallest number of eggs she could
have had?
