Proposals
Below are some proposals for talks from the past (and current). By clicking on the ID number, more details are shown. By default, these are sorted chronologically (recent first) and by then by last name. The data can be sorted by alternate means by using the links at the top right, each allowing ascending or descending orders.
Displaying 1-20 of 471 results.
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ID:
26
Year: 2004
Name: Ryan Martin
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Combinatorics, Graph Theory
Title of Talk: Six degrees of graph theory: Kevin Bacon, Paul Erdos, William McKinley and me
Abstract: Popularized by the Kevin Bacon game, the Small World problem is a question of measuring distance between members of a given set, upon which is a binary symmetric relationship. In the game, the set is the set of actors and two actors are linked if they appeared in the same movie. The distance between two actors is the fewest number of links to get from one to the other. In this talk, we discuss the game and a random graph model that gives an answer to a Small World-type question.
Year: 2004
Name: Ryan Martin
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Combinatorics, Graph Theory
Title of Talk: Six degrees of graph theory: Kevin Bacon, Paul Erdos, William McKinley and me
Abstract: Popularized by the Kevin Bacon game, the Small World problem is a question of measuring distance between members of a given set, upon which is a binary symmetric relationship. In the game, the set is the set of actors and two actors are linked if they appeared in the same movie. The distance between two actors is the fewest number of links to get from one to the other. In this talk, we discuss the game and a random graph model that gives an answer to a Small World-type question.
ID:
30
Year: 2004
Name: Frank Farris
Institution: Santa Clara University and Editor of Mathematics Magazine
Subject area(s): Geometry
Title of Talk: The Edge of the Universe--Hyperbolic Wallpaper
Abstract: The universe couldn't have an edge, because if it did, you could go there, put your hand through and find more of the universe on the other side, right? This reasoning breaks down if you and your measuring devices shrink as you approach the edge, making it infinitely far away. We show a mathematical model of such a universe, called the Poincare Upper Halfplane, and study some of its features. The classical topic of circle inversion plays a prominent role. Physics suggests that this turns out to be a cold and lonely place, but we make beautiful wallpaper for the inhabitants.
Year: 2004
Name: Frank Farris
Institution: Santa Clara University and Editor of Mathematics Magazine
Subject area(s): Geometry
Title of Talk: The Edge of the Universe--Hyperbolic Wallpaper
Abstract: The universe couldn't have an edge, because if it did, you could go there, put your hand through and find more of the universe on the other side, right? This reasoning breaks down if you and your measuring devices shrink as you approach the edge, making it infinitely far away. We show a mathematical model of such a universe, called the Poincare Upper Halfplane, and study some of its features. The classical topic of circle inversion plays a prominent role. Physics suggests that this turns out to be a cold and lonely place, but we make beautiful wallpaper for the inhabitants.
ID:
31
Year: 2004
Name: Frank Farris
Institution: Santa Clara University and Editor of Mathematics Magazine
Subject area(s): Geometry
Title of Talk: Forbidden Symmetry: Relaxing the Crystallographic Restriction
Abstract: If you look at enough swatches of wallpaper, you will see centers of 2-fold, 3-fold, 4-fold, and 6-fold rotation. Why not 5-fold centers? They cannot occur, according to the Crystallographic Restriction, a fundamental result about wallpaper patterns, which are defined to be invariant under two linearly independent translations. Even so, we offer convincing pictures that appear to show wallpapers with 5-fold symmetry. The talk is intended to be accessible to students who know something about level curves in the plane and linear algebra.
Year: 2004
Name: Frank Farris
Institution: Santa Clara University and Editor of Mathematics Magazine
Subject area(s): Geometry
Title of Talk: Forbidden Symmetry: Relaxing the Crystallographic Restriction
Abstract: If you look at enough swatches of wallpaper, you will see centers of 2-fold, 3-fold, 4-fold, and 6-fold rotation. Why not 5-fold centers? They cannot occur, according to the Crystallographic Restriction, a fundamental result about wallpaper patterns, which are defined to be invariant under two linearly independent translations. Even so, we offer convincing pictures that appear to show wallpapers with 5-fold symmetry. The talk is intended to be accessible to students who know something about level curves in the plane and linear algebra.
ID:
40
Year: 2004
Name: a.m. fink
Institution:
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: The effect of philosophy on curriculum
Abstract: I wrote a history of the Iowa State Mathematics Department and discovered that the curriculum offered was very dependent on outside influences and the philosophy of eductation of the those outside influences.
Year: 2004
Name: a.m. fink
Institution:
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: The effect of philosophy on curriculum
Abstract: I wrote a history of the Iowa State Mathematics Department and discovered that the curriculum offered was very dependent on outside influences and the philosophy of eductation of the those outside influences.
ID:
46
Year: 2004
Name: Charles Ashbacher
Institution: Mt. Mercy College
Subject area(s): Number theory
Title of Talk: Not All Numbers Are Beautiful
Abstract: In his forthcoming book,
Year: 2004
Name: Charles Ashbacher
Institution: Mt. Mercy College
Subject area(s): Number theory
Title of Talk: Not All Numbers Are Beautiful
Abstract: In his forthcoming book,
ID:
47
Year: 2004
Name: Ronald Smith
Institution: Graceland College
Subject area(s): Algorithms
Title of Talk: The distribution of digits in consecutive integers
Abstract: The distribution of digits problem asks for the frequency of each digit (0
Year: 2004
Name: Ronald Smith
Institution: Graceland College
Subject area(s): Algorithms
Title of Talk: The distribution of digits in consecutive integers
Abstract: The distribution of digits problem asks for the frequency of each digit (0
ID:
48
Year: 2004
Name: Christopher French
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s): Number Theory
Title of Talk: Fifth roots of Fibonacci Fractions
Abstract: The quotients of consecutive Fibonacci numbers converge to the golden ratio. In fact, the continued fraction expansion for such ratios consists of the nth truncation of the continued fraction expansion for the golden ratio. In a similar way, if F_n denotes the nth Fibonacci number, then the kth root of F_{n+k}/F_n converges to the golden ratio, and one can investigate the continued fraction expansion for these roots. Something rather remarkable happens when k=5.
Year: 2004
Name: Christopher French
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s): Number Theory
Title of Talk: Fifth roots of Fibonacci Fractions
Abstract: The quotients of consecutive Fibonacci numbers converge to the golden ratio. In fact, the continued fraction expansion for such ratios consists of the nth truncation of the continued fraction expansion for the golden ratio. In a similar way, if F_n denotes the nth Fibonacci number, then the kth root of F_{n+k}/F_n converges to the golden ratio, and one can investigate the continued fraction expansion for these roots. Something rather remarkable happens when k=5.
ID:
49
Year: 2004
Name: Joel Haack
Institution: University of Northern Iowa
Subject area(s): History of Mathematics, number theory
Title of Talk: How did Leonardo Pisano find three rational squares that differ by 5?
Abstract: This problem, which has often seemed intractable to students in a history of mathematics class, can in fact be approached in an understandable fashion, following Leonardo's own development in the Liber Quadratorum.
Year: 2004
Name: Joel Haack
Institution: University of Northern Iowa
Subject area(s): History of Mathematics, number theory
Title of Talk: How did Leonardo Pisano find three rational squares that differ by 5?
Abstract: This problem, which has often seemed intractable to students in a history of mathematics class, can in fact be approached in an understandable fashion, following Leonardo's own development in the Liber Quadratorum.
ID:
50
Year: 2004
Name: Rick Spellerberg
Institution: Simpson College
Subject area(s): Game Theory
Title of Talk: The Sequence Prediction Game
Abstract: This talk will center on a review of a paper that appeared in the International Journal of Game Theory authored by David Blackwell who is a member of the statistics department at the University of California at Berkeley. In his paper, Blackwell considered the problem of predicting the short-term future behavior of a sequence, after observing it as long as you please, so as to achieve a specified reliability against all possible sequences. In particular, predicting when in a sequence of 0
Year: 2004
Name: Rick Spellerberg
Institution: Simpson College
Subject area(s): Game Theory
Title of Talk: The Sequence Prediction Game
Abstract: This talk will center on a review of a paper that appeared in the International Journal of Game Theory authored by David Blackwell who is a member of the statistics department at the University of California at Berkeley. In his paper, Blackwell considered the problem of predicting the short-term future behavior of a sequence, after observing it as long as you please, so as to achieve a specified reliability against all possible sequences. In particular, predicting when in a sequence of 0
ID:
52
Year: 2004
Name: Ruth Berger
Institution: Luther College
Subject area(s): algebra
Title of Talk: Fun & Games with Permutation groups
Abstract: This talk will give an introduction to the
Year: 2004
Name: Ruth Berger
Institution: Luther College
Subject area(s): algebra
Title of Talk: Fun & Games with Permutation groups
Abstract: This talk will give an introduction to the
ID:
53
Year: 2004
Name: Stephen Walk
Institution: St. Cloud State University
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: Avoiding Paradoxes in Joker Poker
Abstract: If we add a Joker to an ordinary deck of cards, we'll find that the three-of-a-kind hands are more prevalent than the two-pair hands. (By convention, the Joker is always interpreted to make the hand's rank as high as possible.) Since the two-pair hands are rarer, by all rights they should outrank the threes-of-a-kind. But if the ranking is redone so that two-pair hands rank higher, then some of the Joker hands have to be interpreted as two-pair hands instead of threes-of-a-kind, and as a result the two-pair hands are again more prevalent than threes-of-a-kind. There is simply no consistent way to rank the poker hands in this Joker deck. It's enough to make Bret Maverick spin in his grave. \par What if we don't confine ourselves to the ordinary deck? Is it possible to find a deck that avoids paradoxes like the one above? Yes! Is it \emph{easy} to avoid paradoxes? Sure---if the deck is big enough. This talk will include the results of an investigation into this situation as well as a few details about the methodology. Only decks of size smaller than one million are considered; bigger decks become somewhat difficult to shuffle.
Year: 2004
Name: Stephen Walk
Institution: St. Cloud State University
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: Avoiding Paradoxes in Joker Poker
Abstract: If we add a Joker to an ordinary deck of cards, we'll find that the three-of-a-kind hands are more prevalent than the two-pair hands. (By convention, the Joker is always interpreted to make the hand's rank as high as possible.) Since the two-pair hands are rarer, by all rights they should outrank the threes-of-a-kind. But if the ranking is redone so that two-pair hands rank higher, then some of the Joker hands have to be interpreted as two-pair hands instead of threes-of-a-kind, and as a result the two-pair hands are again more prevalent than threes-of-a-kind. There is simply no consistent way to rank the poker hands in this Joker deck. It's enough to make Bret Maverick spin in his grave. \par What if we don't confine ourselves to the ordinary deck? Is it possible to find a deck that avoids paradoxes like the one above? Yes! Is it \emph{easy} to avoid paradoxes? Sure---if the deck is big enough. This talk will include the results of an investigation into this situation as well as a few details about the methodology. Only decks of size smaller than one million are considered; bigger decks become somewhat difficult to shuffle.
ID:
54
Year: 2004
Name: David Gisch
Institution: University of Northern Iowa
Subject area(s): history, Geometry
Title of Talk: Apollonius
Abstract: In Tangencies, Apollonius of Perga shows how to construct a circle that is tangent to three given circles. More generally, Apollonius' problem asks to construct the circle which is tangent to any three objects, which may be any combination of points, lines, and circles. The case when all three objects are circles is the most complicated case since up to eight solution circles are possible depending on the arrangement of the given circles. Within the last two centuries solutions have been given by J. D. Gergonne in 1816, Frederick Soddy in 1936, and most recently David Eppstein in 2001. We illustrate the solutions using the geometry software Cinderella
Year: 2004
Name: David Gisch
Institution: University of Northern Iowa
Subject area(s): history, Geometry
Title of Talk: Apollonius
Abstract: In Tangencies, Apollonius of Perga shows how to construct a circle that is tangent to three given circles. More generally, Apollonius' problem asks to construct the circle which is tangent to any three objects, which may be any combination of points, lines, and circles. The case when all three objects are circles is the most complicated case since up to eight solution circles are possible depending on the arrangement of the given circles. Within the last two centuries solutions have been given by J. D. Gergonne in 1816, Frederick Soddy in 1936, and most recently David Eppstein in 2001. We illustrate the solutions using the geometry software Cinderella
ID:
55
Year: 2004
Name: Luz DeAlba
Institution: Drake University
Subject area(s): Geometry, Calculus
Title of Talk: An overview of Geometer's Sketchpad with applications to Calculus
Abstract: We present a quick overview of the basics of software packege Geometer's Sketchpad. Then move on to how one can use the software in the classroom. We showcase applications from several areas of mathematics including applications to Calculus.
Year: 2004
Name: Luz DeAlba
Institution: Drake University
Subject area(s): Geometry, Calculus
Title of Talk: An overview of Geometer's Sketchpad with applications to Calculus
Abstract: We present a quick overview of the basics of software packege Geometer's Sketchpad. Then move on to how one can use the software in the classroom. We showcase applications from several areas of mathematics including applications to Calculus.
ID:
56
Year: 2004
Name: Andrea Brennen
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s): Chaos Theory
Title of Talk: Chaos in Action: Discovering a Basin of Attraction
Abstract: This project is an analysis of the dynamics of a particular subset of 3-D discrete nilpotent maps represented by the general system of equations: x=y; y=x^2-y^2. The analysis focuses on defining the Basin of Attraction and locating invariant manifolds for maps of this type using Liapunov Equations, Functional Equations, and computer imaging/modeling.
Year: 2004
Name: Andrea Brennen
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s): Chaos Theory
Title of Talk: Chaos in Action: Discovering a Basin of Attraction
Abstract: This project is an analysis of the dynamics of a particular subset of 3-D discrete nilpotent maps represented by the general system of equations: x=y; y=x^2-y^2. The analysis focuses on defining the Basin of Attraction and locating invariant manifolds for maps of this type using Liapunov Equations, Functional Equations, and computer imaging/modeling.
ID:
57
Year: 2004
Name: Stephen Bean
Institution: Cornell College
Subject area(s): Math Education, Geometry
Title of Talk: Discovery Learning and Teacher Preparation in College Geometry Courses
Abstract: Many
Year: 2004
Name: Stephen Bean
Institution: Cornell College
Subject area(s): Math Education, Geometry
Title of Talk: Discovery Learning and Teacher Preparation in College Geometry Courses
Abstract: Many
ID:
58
Year: 2004
Name: Marc Chamberland
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: Unbounded Orbits and Binary Digits
Abstract: We consider iterating the map f(x)=x - 1/x, starting at x=2. Ron Graham asked whether the orbit is bounded. This problem intersects number theory (rationals, the normality of numbers) and dynamics (dynamcis on an interval, chaos). You will find out why this is such a hard problem! The talk will be accessible to a general audience.
Year: 2004
Name: Marc Chamberland
Institution: Grinnell College
Subject area(s):
Title of Talk: Unbounded Orbits and Binary Digits
Abstract: We consider iterating the map f(x)=x - 1/x, starting at x=2. Ron Graham asked whether the orbit is bounded. This problem intersects number theory (rationals, the normality of numbers) and dynamics (dynamcis on an interval, chaos). You will find out why this is such a hard problem! The talk will be accessible to a general audience.
ID:
63
Year: 2004
Name: Mariah Birgen
Institution: Wartburg College
Subject area(s): Undergraduate Education
Title of Talk: Making the Most of Blackboard/WebCT/Etc. in Mathematics
Abstract: With the proliferation of Course Management Systems on campuses across the country, I often ask myself several questions: How can this make my life easier? Won
Year: 2004
Name: Mariah Birgen
Institution: Wartburg College
Subject area(s): Undergraduate Education
Title of Talk: Making the Most of Blackboard/WebCT/Etc. in Mathematics
Abstract: With the proliferation of Course Management Systems on campuses across the country, I often ask myself several questions: How can this make my life easier? Won
ID:
64
Year: 2004
Name: Christian Roettger
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Number theory, exponential sums
Title of Talk: Uniform distribution and invertible matrices
Abstract: Uniform distribution is usually known as a property of sequences xn in the unit interval, like n alpha modulo 1, where alpha is irrational. We will present an example of uniform distribution in the unit square, explain the handy Weyl criterion used to prove uniform distribution, and conclude with an application to invertible 2x2 - matrices over the integers.
Year: 2004
Name: Christian Roettger
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Number theory, exponential sums
Title of Talk: Uniform distribution and invertible matrices
Abstract: Uniform distribution is usually known as a property of sequences xn in the unit interval, like n alpha modulo 1, where alpha is irrational. We will present an example of uniform distribution in the unit square, explain the handy Weyl criterion used to prove uniform distribution, and conclude with an application to invertible 2x2 - matrices over the integers.
ID:
65
Year: 2004
Name: Tauqir Bibi
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Calculus
Title of Talk: Experiences of Tauqir Bibi in Teaching Calculus Courses
Abstract: I have taught calculus courses for many years. Most of the students in these courses are engineering majors. Many of these students appreciate seeing applications to their majors. I will present examples of some problems and projects that introduce students to applications of Calculus in their majors.
Year: 2004
Name: Tauqir Bibi
Institution: Iowa State University
Subject area(s): Calculus
Title of Talk: Experiences of Tauqir Bibi in Teaching Calculus Courses
Abstract: I have taught calculus courses for many years. Most of the students in these courses are engineering majors. Many of these students appreciate seeing applications to their majors. I will present examples of some problems and projects that introduce students to applications of Calculus in their majors.
ID:
66
Year: 2004
Name: Bernadette Baker
Institution: Drake University
Subject area(s): Teaching and Learning (College Algebra)
Title of Talk: DOES TEACHING FUNCTIONS BASED ON TRANSFORMATION OF BASIC FUNCTIONS WORK?
Abstract: One typical pre-calculus approach introduces students to transformations of basic functions to help them develop a better understanding of functions. There is no research focusing on how or if this type of course achieves its goal. The present study addresses this issue as well as the difficulties students face when working with the concept of transformations of functions. This research attempts to explain, in terms of APOS (Action, Process, Object, Schema) theory, the difficulties that students exhibited in one particular course and to gain insights into why many students were not as successful as expected. Through the analysis of detailed interviews with 24 students, this study describes students
Year: 2004
Name: Bernadette Baker
Institution: Drake University
Subject area(s): Teaching and Learning (College Algebra)
Title of Talk: DOES TEACHING FUNCTIONS BASED ON TRANSFORMATION OF BASIC FUNCTIONS WORK?
Abstract: One typical pre-calculus approach introduces students to transformations of basic functions to help them develop a better understanding of functions. There is no research focusing on how or if this type of course achieves its goal. The present study addresses this issue as well as the difficulties students face when working with the concept of transformations of functions. This research attempts to explain, in terms of APOS (Action, Process, Object, Schema) theory, the difficulties that students exhibited in one particular course and to gain insights into why many students were not as successful as expected. Through the analysis of detailed interviews with 24 students, this study describes students