A Fortnightly Electronic Newsletter
from the Hope College Department of Mathematics
April 9, 2003
Vol. 1, No.
12
Do Dogs Know Calculus?
Tim Pennings, in a classic dog and pony show, will present a mathematics
colloquium tomorrow, Thursday, April 10 at 11:00 AM in VWF
102. (Note the time is at 11:00 AM!) His talk
is titled, "Do Dogs Know Calculus?" A standard modeling problem in
calculus is to find the quickest path from a point on shore to a point in
a lake where the running speed is greater than the swimming speed.
Elvis, Tim's Welsh Corgi, has never had a calculus course, but when he plays
"fetch" on the shore of Lake Michigan, he appears to choose paths close to
the optimal ones. In this talk, it will be revealed what was found
experimentally when Elvis was tested. Elvis will be in the building
and will be available for follow-up questions.
Twin prime breakthrough made
Dan Goldston, of San Jose State University, and Cem Yildirim, of Bogazici
University in Istanbul, Turkey recently announced at a conference in Germany
on Algorithmic Number Theory that they have made a breakthrough in the process
of proving the twin prime conjecture. This idea, while still unproved,
is that there are an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers that differ
only by two. For example 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 11 and 13, 17 and 19, and
so on are all twin primes. As the numbers get larger the distance between
twin primes gets larger. What Goldston and Yildirim did, after about
20 years of work, was to determine that they could find prime numbers that
might not be twins, but that were much closer together than average. What
might be more important than the result was the method in which they did this.
For more information on this breakthrough, visit http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/5483833.htm
or http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2911945.stm.
Surfing the Web
April is mathematics awareness month. The topic for this year is mathematics
and the arts. The connection between mathematics and art goes back thousands
of years. The ancient Greeks and Romans used mathematics in sculptures and
to aesthetically design buildings. In the 15th century Leonardo da Vinci wrote
"Let no one read me who is not a mathematician." In the 16th century Durer
employed mathematics to introduce perspective in drawings. In the 18th and
19th centuries mathematics was extensively used in the design of Gothic cathedrals,
Rose windows, mosaics and tilings. In the 20th century geometric forms were
fundamental to the cubists and many abstract expressionists. In recent decades
several award winning sculptors have used topology as the basis for their
pieces.
The official Mathematics Awareness Month web site is located at http://mathforum.org/mam/03/. Here
you can find essays about the connections between mathematics and art, the
official Mathematics Awareness Month poster, links to related sites, and activities
that are being done across the country.
Pi Mu Epsilon luncheon set
Applications are currently being accepted for membership in Pi Mu Epsilon,
the national mathematics honor society. Applications forms are available
on the mathematics department web site located at http://www.math.hope.edu/. The
deadline for applying this year is Wednesday, April 23, 2003.
The criteria for joining are:
If you are a sophomore, you must be a declared mathematics major,
have completed at least 11 hours of mathematics courses at Hope College, have
a GPA of at least 3.7 in mathematics courses at Hope College, and have an
overall GPA of 3.5.
If you are a junior or senior, you must be a declared major or minor
in mathematics, have completed at least 15 hours of mathematics courses
at Hope College, have a GPA of at least 3.2 in mathematics courses at Hope
College, and have an overall GPA of 3.3.
The Mathematics Department will pay half of the $20 Pi Mu Epsilon induction
fee. Please send $10 with your completed application to Jil Ponstein, VWF
204, no later than Wednesday, April 23. Make your check payable to Mathematics
Department.
If you are a current member or joining Pi Mu Epsilon or if you are a
graduating senior, you are invited to a luncheon held on Saturday, April
26 at 1 PM at Pietro's Restaurant. At this time we will induct new
members into Pi Mu Epsilon and recognize our graduating seniors. If
you plan to attend, please RSVP to Professor Lalani no later than Wednesday,
April 23. A sign up sheet is posted on her door (VWF 214) or you can RSVP
via email at lalani@hope.edu. The department will be charged for your
lunch if you RSVP but do not attend. We will gladly pay for the lunch of
all attendees, but we expect you to reimburse us if you RSVP and do not
attend.