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During the past year, the book
Proofs Without Words: Exercises in Visual Thinking (MAA, 1993) by
Roger Nelsen of
Lewis & Clark College was
translated and published in Spanish and Japanese.
Larry Anderson ,
who has been in the math department at
Whitman College for thirty-four years, is taking early
retirement in December, 2002. Larry will be greatly missed for his
contributions to the department and the college, his interest in students
and in teaching, and his involvement in successful joint research with
students. The department is currently conducting a search for a
tenure-track replacement for Larry and has a special interest in someone
whose research program has components suitable for collaboration with
undergrads.
At
Pacific University, Christine
Guenther has assumed the duties of chair of the mathematics
and computer science department while Michael
Boardman enjoys a half-year sabbatical.
Bogdana Georgieva participated in
the Second International Conference on the Teaching of Mathematics at the
Undergraduate Level, Crete, Greece this past summer. Her paper “New
Approach to the Use of Solution Manuals in the Teaching of Higher
Mathematics” will appear in the refereed proceedings.
Nancy Neudauer has been selected to
participate in the AWM workshop at the upcoming joint meetings in
Baltimore.
This year, and only this academic
year, the math department at
Central Washington University
can boast of having the components of a Pythagorean Quadruple. Until July
11, 2003 we have Stuart Boersma (36), Tim Englund (36) and Jim Harper (49)
as “legs” to the Quadruple: 62 + 62 + 72
= 112. This Quadruple can be generated by (u,v,w) = (3,2,3) via
the formula
a = 2uv/g, b = 2wv/g, c = (u2
+ w2 – v2)/g and d = (u2 + w2
+ v2)/g
where g = gcd(u2 + w2, v).
Also at
CWU,
Stuart Boersma (with Michele Hluchy) published a paper
recently in Primus on the “The Angle of Repose”. The CMJ has accepted
Aaron Montgomery’s “Hairy Parabola”
and the Monthly has accepted Jim Harper’s
“Another Simple Proof of 1 + 1/22 + 1/32 +
. . . = π2/6”.
Raza Choudary
also published a paper in the
Journal of Topology recently.
Grants Around the Section
Mathematics faculty at the
University of
Portland have three new grants.
Greg Hill and Tamar More (Physics) have an
NSF grant to teach calculus and physics as an integrated course, and they
have begun teaching the integrated course this year. In addition,
Greg Hill,
Carmen Schabel, Jim Male
(Engineering) and Steve Vegdahl (Computer Science) have an NSF CSEMS grant
for scholarships for majors in mathematics, computer science and
engineering. Carmen Schabel and
Dave Damcke also have a grant for using the
Math Excel Program in local high schools.
Stephan Glasby
at
Central Washington University
was a member of a national team that was awarded a quarter million dollar
NSF STEP grant. STEP is a pilot program designed to increase participation
in science, technology and mathematics.
Faculty in the
Mathematics Department at
Seattle University
have recently received grants to
fund two interesting projects. Heather
McGilvray and Kathleen Sullivan
have received a grant from Coppin State College and the NSA, through the
Association for Women in Mathematics, to host a Sonya Kovalevski Day on
February 14, 2003. Seattle University is inviting teachers and girls from
selected middle schools in the Seattle area to campus for a day full of
mathematical activities. The girls will participate in small hands-on
exploratory projects led by women volunteers from various scientific
fields, including mathematics, engineering, and computer science. The
teachers will attend two workshop sessions on using hands-on projects in
their classrooms.
The second grant at
Seattle University was received by John
Carter, who is a participant in a National Science
Foundation Focused Research Group grant. John describes the work in the
following way: Waves play an important role in weather prediction, coastal
erosion, and other phenomena. John and other group members (two
experimentalists and a handful of pure and applied mathematicians) are
researching the potential coherence of three-dimensional wave patterns
over large scales. As part of this project, an undergraduate student, Erin
Hunt, and John Carter are comparing data from physical experiments with
results from various mathematical models of water waves.
Dr. Kenrick
Mock and
Dr. Patrick O’Leary, Assistant
Professors of Computer Science in the Department of Mathematical Sciences
at the
University of Alaska Anchorage
were awarded an NSF MRI
Grant for the acquisition of research computational equipment.
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