The
Mathematical Association of America
New Jersey
Section
MIDDLESEX
COUNTY COLLEGE
Saturday, November 10, 2001
|
8:30-9:30 |
Registration and Coffee, foyer outside
Rm. 100 |
|
8:30-1:30 |
Book Exhibits, foyer outside Rm. 100 |
|
9:30-9:45 |
Welcome by Reginald Luke Dean of the Division of Science,
Mathematics and Health Technologies, MCC |
|
9:45-10:30 |
Measuring
the Universe |
|
10:30-10:45 |
Remarks by the Chair of MAA-NJ |
|
10:45-11:30 |
Intermission (Coffee and Book Exhibits) |
|
11:30-12:15 |
Nyctaginaceous Plants and Mathematics Presider: Michael A. Jones, Montclair
State University |
|
12:15-1:30 |
Lunch (Book Exhibits end at 1:30) |
|
1:30-2:15 |
Mathematics and Experiments: The Graph Coloring Problem Presider: Olcay Ilicasu, Rowan
University |
|
2:15-2:30 |
Remarks by Governor of MAA-NJ |
|
2:30-2:45 |
Intermission (Silent Auction bidding
ends at 2:45) |
|
2:45-3:30 |
Clever
historical ideas which will motivate your students Presider: Carol Avelsgaard, Middlesex
County College |
|
3:30 |
Drawing of Door Prizes and Announcement
of Silent Auction Winners |
|
5:00 |
Dinner honoring invited speakers. |
Organizing Committee
Mark S. Korlie, Montclair University, Dawn A. Lott, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Theresa C. Michnowicz, New Jersey City University
Program Committee
Hieu Duc Nguyen, Rowan University, Larry D'Antonio, Ramapo College, Cathy Liebars, The College of New Jersey, Reginald Luke, Middlesex County College, Judith Lenk, Ocean County College, Bonnie Gold, Monmouth University
Hosting Committee
Carol Avelsgaard (chair), Maria DeLucia, Reginald Luke, Elena Rakova, Kathy Shay, Georgina Vastola, Mark Weiner, Darlene Yoseloff, Middlesex County College
Acknowledgments
The MAA-NJ thanks the Mathematics Department of Middlesex County College for their kind hospitality in hosting the meeting.
Abstracts and Biographies of Speakers
Mathematics and Experiments: The Graph Coloring Problem
Catherine C. McGeoch,
Amherst College
The Graph Coloring Problem is a
generalization of the map-coloring problem to non planar graphs: for a
given graph, the problem is to color the vertices under the constraint that no
two adjacent vertices can have the same color. I shall talk about
the problem and its applications, and how experiment can be used to discover
new properties of the problem and algorithms for it.
Catherine C.
McGeoch is
Professor of Computer Science at Amherst College, where she has been on the
faculty since receiving her PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in
1986. She specializes in the experimental analysis of
algorithms. She co-organized the first of an annual series of DIMACS
experimentation challenges in 1991, and she co-founded the ALENEX (Algorithm
Engineering and Experimentation) workshop, now an annual event, in 1999.
Clever historical ideas which will motivate your students
V. Frederick Rickey, United
States Military Academy
Did you know that the Mercator map projection
led to the discovery of the integral of the secant? Telling this story to your
students will make this difficult to motivate integral quite natural. And what
about the integral of the sine function? Can you do it with "Riemann
sums"? Pascal did. Perhaps you have seen the Infinite Acres film and so
know of an object that you can't paint the outside of, but the inside can be
filled with paint. But do you know how to make "a drinking glass, that had
a small weight, but that even the hardiest drinker could not empty."
Examples like these will make your calculus students enjoy, learn, and remember
your class. Along the way they will learn some interesting history and
something about how mathematics is created by some of the best mathematicians
who ever lived.
V. Frederick Rickey, a logician turned historian, became Professor of Mathematics at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY in the summer of 1998. After earning three degrees from the University of Notre Dame (Ph.D. 1968) he went to Bowling Green State University where he rose through the professorial ranks to the rank of Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus. He has broad interests in the history of mathematics and is especially interested in the development of the calculus.
He
has been on leave five times, most recently in Washington D. C. where he was
Visiting Mathematician at the MAA Headquarters. While there he was involved in
the founding of Math Horizons, a magazine for mathematics undergraduates; became the first
editor of electronic services for the MAA and built its first gopher and web
pages; and wrote a successful NSF grant for an Institute for the History of
Mathematics and Its Use in Teaching.
He loves teaching and enjoys giving
lectures to mathematicians about the history of their field. He received the
first award from the Ohio Section for Distinguished College or University
Teaching of Mathematics, and one of the first MAA
National Awards for teaching.
Nyctaginaceous Plants and Mathematics
James J. Tattersall, Providence College
We investigate the history behind several
interesting mathematical techniques and formulas found in undergraduate
mathematics courses. In the process of discussing these geometric, number
theoretic, and combinatoric tools, we discuss related episodes from the French
and Indian War, the spice trade, the French Revolution, and the history of the
University of Cambridge.
Jim Tattersall received an undergraduate
degree in mathematics from the University of Virginia in 1963, a Master's
degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1965, and a Ph.D. degree in
mathematics from the University of Oklahoma in 1971. On a number of occasions he
has been a visiting scholar at the Department of Pure Mathematics and
Mathematical Statistics at Cambridge University. In 1991, he spent six months
as a visiting mathematician at the American Mathematical Society. In 1995-1996,
he spent eighteen months as a visiting professor at the U.S. Military Academy
at West Point where he received an Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. He was
given the Award for Distinguished Service (1992) and the Award and for
Distinguished College Teaching (1997) from the Northeastern Section of the MAA.
He served as editor of the Proceedings of the Canadian Society for History and
Philosophy of Mathematics from 1992 to 1999. He is past-President of the
Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Mathematics,
Archivist/Historian of NES/MAA, and Associate Secretary of the Mathematical
Association of America. His book on number theory was published by Cambridge
University Press.
Measuring the Universe
Jeffrey Weeks
How
old is the universe? How big is it?
Is it flat or curved? This elementary talk will survey humanity's
understanding of the geometry of space from ancient times to the present, with
an emphasis on current measurements of the microwave background radiation which
are already revealing the curvature of space and might eventually reveal its
overall size and shape as well. But even as these measurements answer old
questions about the geometry of the universe, they raise new questions about
the matter and energy it contains.
Jeffrey Weeks is a freelance mathematician living in Canton, NY. He has an A.B. from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in mathematics. His main interests are geometry, topology, education and cosmology. After several years of teaching undergraduate mathematics, he resigned to care for his newborn son. When his son began school, Jeff began doing mathematical research and software development for the University of Minnesota's Geometry Center, designing and implementing research software for creating and studying possible shapes for 3-dimensional space. Currently a MacArthur Fellow, he splits his time between research and education. His present research centers on a collaboration with cosmologists, with whom he plans to test the topology of the universe using data to be provided by NASA's Microwave Anisotropy Probe in 2002-2004. His educational activities have lead to a multimedia unit for middle schools on geometry and space. The unit uses classroom activities, computer games, and video to let students explore universes that are finite but have no boundaries. Jeff is the author of the book The Shape of Space (Marcel Dekker, 1985), the unit Exploring the Shape of Space (Key Curriculum Press, 2001), and various research and expository articles.
Announcements
Lunch discussion tables for
Fall 01 meeting
There will be eight discussion tables at
lunch.
2.
CBMS Mathematical Education of Teachers report, led by Cathy
Liebars, The College of New Jersey
3.
Experimentation in undergraduate mathematics, led by Catherine
McGeoch, Amherst College
4.
Teaching history of mathematics courses, led by V. Frederick Rickey, USMA
5.
How to improve MAA national meetings, led by James Tattersall,
Providence College
6.
Science in the undergraduate math curriculum, led by Jeffrey
Weeks
7.
Mathematics outside of academia, led by Greg Coxson, Lockheed
Martin
8.
Assessment,
led by Bonnie Gold, Monmouth University
Those who pre-registered have priority at
these discussion tables. We look forward to a set of lively and interesting
discussions!
MAA-NJ Spring 2002 Meeting
The Spring Meeting of the Mathematical
Association of America, New Jersey Section, will be held at Monmouth
University, West Long Branch, NJ on April 13, 2002. Speakers include George
Andrews of Penn State. There will also
be a workshop on Islamic Art given by Lynn Bodner, of Monmouth.
Call for contributed papers
There will be two contributed paper sessions for
MAA members at the MAA-NJ Spring 2002 Meeting. Papers will be accepted on
a first-come
first-serve basis. Please submit a title and short
abstract by February 1, 2001, to Theresa C. Michnowicz, New Jersey City
University,
tmichnowicz@njcu.edu, 201-200-3219.
Call for student
presentations
There will also be one contributed paper session for
students at the MAA-NJ Spring 2002 Meeting. Papers will be accepted on a
first-come first-serve
basis.
Please submit a title and short abstract by February 1, 2001, to Lawrence
D'Antonio, Ramapo College of New Jersey, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, Mahwah, NJ
07430, ldant@orion.ramapo.edu, 201-684-7714.
MAA-NJ Fall
2002 Meeting
The Fall 2002 MAA-NJ meeting will be held on Saturday, October 26, at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison). Speakers will include Joe Gallian of University of Minnesota, Duluth, and Judith Grabiner of Pitzer College. Send comments, suggestions, topics to Dawn Lott, MAA-NJ Vice Chair for Speakers, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Center for Applied Mathematics and Statistics, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102, (973)642-7807, dalc@dalc.njit.edu
Call for
Nominations for the New Jersey Section Award for Distinguished College or
University Teaching
The MAA-NJ Section Distinguished Teaching
Award Selection Committee is seeking nominations for the 2002 Distinguished
College or University Teaching Award.
The winner of this award will be recognized at the Spring 2002
Meeting. Please submit nominations by January
1, 2002 to: Mark S. Korlie, Secretary of the MAA-NJ Section, Department of
Mathematical Sciences, Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043, korliem@mail.montclair.edu, 973-655-5300.
New
Professional Enhancement Programs through national MAA (PREP)
The MAA has received almost $1 million in funding
from the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education National Dissemination
Program, for a series of
approximately twenty-five professional
enhancement workshops to be held over a three-year period. The first of these, Assessment at the Departmental Level,
will involve teams of faculty over a 24 month period, beginning immediately
after the joint meetings in San Diego in January; for details, http://www.maa.org/pfdev/prep/haver.html
If you are interested in attending a workshop
this summer, a description of programs for summer 2001 and application
materials can be found online at
http://www.maa.org/pfdev/prep/prep.html
In Memoriam
It is with sadness that we report the recent death of Ruth O'Dell, a former Governor of the MAA New Jersey section. Ruth was very involved in mathematics education. In addition to being Governor of the section, she also served on the DIMACS Reconnect Advisory Committee and Module Editorial Board, the Public Policy Committee on the NJ Mathematics Coalition, the National Membership Committee of MAA and was a past president of the Kean College Board of Trustees. Ruth was the organizer of NJ Mathnet and was its first chair. Ruth was a valued member of our mathematics community and she will be sorely missed by all who were privileged to know her.
MAA-NJ Executive Board
|
MAA-NJ Governor: |
Amy Cohen, Rutgers University |
|
MAA-NJ OFFICERS |
|
|
Chair: |
Judith Lenk, Ocean County College |
|
Chair-Elect: |
Reginald Luke, Middlesex County College |
|
Vice Chair for |
Dawn Lott, NJIT |
|
Secretary: |
Mark Korlie, Montclair State University |
|
Treasurer: |
Cathy Liebars, The College of New Jersey |
|
Speakers Bureau |
Carol Avelsgaard, Middlesex County College |
|
Student Activities Coordinator: |
Lawrence D’Antonio, Ramapo College of New Jersey |
|
Public Information Officer: |
Hieu Duc Nguyen, Rowan University |