Georgia Tech Undergraduate Mathematics

VIGRE, Patty Pichardo,, David Eger Nick Bronn,   Mel SlugbateDavid Eger Again

Proof,  John Conway Elizabeth SandersApril Events, Putnam, Kerzhner and Rao , Professor McCuan Conway Photos

 

 


David Eger's Semester in Budapest

July 2002. David Eger has written an essay on his stay in Budapest, and placed in on an attractive web page. The Semester Abroad in Budapest has a special concentration in Mathematics. The courses are taught at the senior/graduate level, by US standards, by exiciting professors. It is a special opportunity for Math majors to investigate.

David also includes a very helpful link to a web site for scholarships for International study. One of them, the Regents Scholarship is open to all GT students.

And by jumping further down this page, or on other "what's going on" pages at this site, you can find out more about the really interesting range of things that Mr Eger has been up to during his time at Georgia Tech.

Go Here for the Summer 2002 VIGRE/GT REU news

May 2002. The Summer is here, with 12 students doing Undergraduate Research. This is where the action will be this summer.

News From Three Recent Grads

April 2002. Some news from three recent graduates of Georgia Tech School of Mathematics came to us. First, Jason Hong, a 1997 Discrete Math graduate is continuing his Computer Science Studies at the University of California Berkeley. He has a very nice web site, describing his background, current research projects and more. Check out the buzz and plug for Krispy Kreme at his site.

Ojas Prakeh is also a 1997 Discrete Math graduate. He entered the Algorithms, Computation and Optimization program at Carnegie Mellon University, and has now finished his PhD. His application to universities and research labs drew a lot of interest, nationally. He will be a Postdoc at Sandia National Labarotories for one year, before assuming a tenure track position in Mathematics at Emory University.

Thor Johnson had a very lively undergraduate at Georgia Tech. He completed research with Professor Robin Thomas. And there are still quite a few stories going around about his very quick mind. He is finishing his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and will be working for a Wall Street firm.

J.H. Conway Pics Up!

Photos of Conway's very successful Undergrad Lunch and Stelson Lecture are up!

April Fools Joke draws a lot of hits 

The math majors got an unexpected piece of news April 1, 2002: An email informing them of new outcomes in the General Education Guidelines of Georgia Tech. These guidelines, the message asserted, would force all GT grads to take high level programing and mathematics courses. 100 Majors (not all of them guilible, to be sure!) followed the link to get more information---the link to the April Fools message. 

S.K. wrote back: "Dr. Lacey, That was too good. I was scared to death about the CS 4XXX requirement. Really funny!" 

P.P. wrote back: " I am rolling on the floor laughing!!! You got me up until the very end when you were taking about hiring 15 people and I realized oh wait I had a bad experience earlier today why was this?? Yes, Happy April Fool's Prof. Lacey!!" 

Professor John McCuan to participate in the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows program, develop ACE Lab experiments 

March 2002. Professor John McCuan will participate in a special teaching program, sponsored by the Class of 1969. As part of the program, Professor McCuan will design ACE Lab experiments that will be used in various differential equations and mathematical modeling courses. 

The Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows program offers participants the opportunity to develop their pedagogical techniques and to sharpen their individual teaching skills through classroom observations, videotape critiques, student dialogs conducted by a CETL professional, seminars, and a teaching project. 

There is one class of Fellows per academic year. During the first semester of the two-semester commitment, the Fellows attend a series of weekly seminars on various aspects of teaching. These include such topics as cognitive science - how students learn, interactive alternatives to the lecture, working with graduate students, using technology as a teaching tool, teaching on video, and teaching tips from award-winning professors.

During the second semester of the Teaching Fellowship, participants receive a grant to implement, with the assistance of their self-selected mentor, a teaching project involving undergraduate education. 

Professor McCuan has been teaching in the ACE lab already, and is scheduled to teach the honors Differential Equations, Math 2413, incorporating experiments and demonstrations in the ACE lab. 

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Yakov Kerzhner and Anup Rao awarded 2002 School of Math prizes. 

March 2002. Each spring semester the School of Mathematics selects an outstanding junior and senior majoring in Mathematics. The junior award is the Currie Scholarship Award. Both prizes come with a check. 

This year's awards go to Yakov Kerzhner, as the outstanding junior, and Anup Rao as the oustanding senior. Yakov has just over the 60 credit hours to have standing as a junior, and has advanced quite rapidly in his studies. He plans on taking the graduate algebra sequence in the Fall semester. 

Anup Rao is a double major in Math and Computer Science, and is graduating this semester. Following a demanding degree path, he has a very high GPA, and distinguished himself on the 2001 Putnam with a score placing him at 143 out of nearly 3000 test takers. (See the article below!) 

Those who received the awards in the past two years is found by following the "Awards" link on the left. 

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GT Math 2001 Putnam Scores are in: Placed 22nd out of 453.

March 2002. The scores for the 2001 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition are in. I'm happy to report that Georgia Tech students performed very well. 

Out of the 453 institutions that participated the competition, our team finished 22nd. The top five teams are: Harvard, MIT, Duke, Berkeley and Stanford, as usual. 

But more importantly, 18 students from Tech took the exam, and 14 of whom scored some points. As you know the Putnam is notorious for its difficulty. Of the 2954 participants the median is 1 point this year. 

Two of our students, Anup Rao (CS+math) and Billy Francisco (Math) scored 41 points (rank 143.5th). Particularly encouraging is the fact that many of the students only knew about the Putnam Exam last year and took the exam for the first time (Francisco, Yakov and Boris Kerzhner, Troung, Lacey, Stoudenmire, Nakamura, Cuneo, Mather, Wambrandt). Several of the aforementioned students were freshmen. Below are the scores of our students: 
name 
score
rank 
Anup Rao 
41 
(143.5th) 
Billy Francisco
41 
Matt Fisher 
20 
(494th) 
Yakov Kerzhner 
15 
Nguyen Truong 
12 
Blair Dowling
10
(970th)
Nimesh Bhakta 
10 
Vincent Lacey
10 
Boris Kerzhner 
Miles Stoudenmire
Nitesh Singh
Kathleen Deloughery 
Brian Nakamura
Joshua Cuneo 
1

Some general info: 
-high score: 101 (there was 1 of these, 1 at 100, then it dropped quickly to 86 to 80) 
-top 494 cutoff score: 21 
-2954 participants from 453 institutions 
-scoring a 10 puts you at rank 970 
-1 point puts you at rank 1469.5 
-0 points is rank 2292 

The Putnam Exam is given in December of each year. Professor Wang runs problem sessions, training students who want to take the exam. See his links for the Putnam Exam. 

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April 4th to 9th will be packed with special events, "Proof," Conway, Winkler and more 

March 2002. From Thursday April 4 to Tuesday April 9 there will be several special events taking place in and around the School of Mathematics. Here is the run down: 
  • Thursday April 4, 11:00 am, Skiles 249: Discussion with Susan Booth, director of the play "Proof" 
  • Thursday April 4, 3:00 pm, Skiles 269: Peter Winkler (Bell Labs) gives a seminar, "Games People Don't Play." Undergraduates encouraged to attend. 
  • Thursday April 4, 4:30 pm, Skiles 265: Peter Winkler (Bell Labs) gives a colloquium: "Building Uniformly Random Objects." 
  • Sunday, April 7, 2:30pm, Alliance Theatre: "Proof" 
  • Monday April 8, 12 noon, College of Computing 102: Erik D. Demaine (MIT) gives a seminar "Folding and Unfolding in Computational Geometry" 
  • Monday April 8, 4:30 pm, Skiles 249: John Conway (Princeton) gives a seminar "Understanding Polyhedra and Theor Symmetries" 
  • Tuesday April 9, 3pm Skiles 269: David Wolfe (Gustavus Aldophus College) gives a seminar, "Putting the Combinatorics in Combinatorial Game Theory" 
  • Tuesday April 9, 5pm, Clary Theater , Student Success Center: John Conway (Princeton) gives the Steltson Lecture "Tangles, Knots, and Numbers" Followed by a reception at 6pm. 
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    Elizabeth Sanders to participate in the Mathematics in Moscow Semester 

    March 2002. Elizabeth Sanders, a sophmore in Applied Mathematics is going to Moscow this fall. She will be attending the Math in Moscow semester, at the Independent University of Moscow. 

    This program is still in it's infancy, and promises an exciting range of courses in mathematics, from beginning, e.g. Number theory, to the advanced e.g. Commutative and Homological Algebra. In addition, there are courses in Russian language, economics and the history of sciences. The price of the program is $3500 tution plus inexpensive room and board. There are fellowships for this program as well. 

    Elizabeth Sanders is also pursuing a minor in International Affairs, making the Math in Moscow Semester an outstanding enhancement of her undergraduate education. 

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    John Horton Conway to speak April 9, 5pm Student Success Center. 

    March 2002. John Horton Conway, inventor of the Game of Life, Surreal Numbers, and a wealth of other interesting and ingenious pieces of mathematics will give the 2002 Steltson Lecture. This is a not-to-be-missed lecture! 

    "Tangles, Knots and Numbers" 

    5:00 Tuesday - April 9, 2002 - Atlanta, GA 

    Student Success Center Auditorium 

    ABSTRACT: How can you understand the shape of a knot, or prove that it really is knotted? What makes one knot different from another? I'll describe some ways in which elementary arithmetic can help. Although we're all familiar with knots, the theory of knots is a hard subject; it took more than a century before mathematicians were even able to find a guaranteed way to tell whether a string is knotted or not. However, some things are easy... 

    This talk is intended for a general audience. 

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    We are going to see "Proof" at the Alliance Theatre, Sunday April 7, 2:30 pm 

    March 2002. The School of Mathematics is able to offer 100 tickets to the Sunday afternoon (2:30 pm), April 7th, performance of "Proof" at the Alliance Theater. These tickts are for $33.00 seats in the orchestra, and will be partially underwritten for all undergraduate and graduate Math majors, as well as reduced for the faculty and staff of Math. 

    Each math person will be able to purchase up to 2 tickets for the performance at the following prices: 

    undergraduate Math majors - $15.00 @ 

     Math graduate students - $17.00 @ 

     Math faculty and staff - $27.00 @ 

     Beginning next Monday, February 25, tickets will be available for purchase from Ms. Genola Turner in 218B, anytime between 7:30 am and 4:30 pm, except during her lunch hour (1:30 pm - 2:30 pm). 

    She can accept checks made out to the Georgia Tech Foundation or cash. 

    First come, first served. In addition, the director of the play, Ms. Susan Booth,(also the new artistic director for the Alliance) has agreed to meet with us on April 4, the Thursday before we see the play, at 11:00 am to talk about the work itself and this production. 

    "Proof", a Pulitzer Prize winning play by David Auburn, has had a long successful run in New York City. A synopsis of the play follows: 

    "Proof" is the story of an enigmatic young woman, Catherine, her manipulative sister, their brilliant father, and an unexpected suitor. They are all pieces of the puzzle in the search for the truth behind a mysterious mathematical proof. On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine, a young woman who has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, Robert, must deal with the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire, and with the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father's who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that Robert left behind. 

    What Hal discovers in an old notebook is a brilliant mathematical result that tests the sisters' kinship as well as the romantic feelings growing between Catherine and Hal. As Catherine confronts Hal's affections and Claire's plans for her life, she struggles to solve the most perplexing problem of all: How much of her father's madness - or genius - will she inherit? This poignant drama about love and reconciliation unfolds on the back porch of a house in Chicago's Hyde Park.

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    More News from Semester Abroad in Budapest 

    March 2002. David Eger, is at the Semester Abroad in Budapest, with a special emphasis on Mathematics. He writes about one lecture in algebra, delivered by Have I told you about Csaba? It's great, he did a proof of maximal n roots in a polynomial over an integral domain in the period of about fifteen minutes by running through the theorem that any polynomial over a ring has at most n roots (a fallacious proof, as there are many roots of the polynomial x^2+1 over the division ring of quaternions), saying at every step in the proof "Fine?! Fine" and all of us nodding along, trying to keep up, vaguely remembering something similar from our past, and then upon completion, pointing out that the theorem was obviously not true, and quizzing us on what steps in his proof were wrong - it was great! 

    I've never had a professor strike home so well the preconditions for a theorem. It was great. You should come to Budapest and enjoy this program - it's a chance to romp around Europe and learn from really neat mathematicians, and live with math geeks for a semester. And best of all, all of the courses count towards your requirements! (Aren't you glad you added Math as a second major?) 

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    Mel Slugbate to speak on Real Estate in Hyperbolic Space, March 21, Skiles 249, 4:30pm

    February 2002. The "infamous" Mel Slugbate, Real Estate Broker, will speak in the School of Mathematics Colloquium on March 21, Skiles room 249 at 4:30 pm. Cookies and Tea are at 4 pm in the Math lounge. 

    Mel Slugbate, of Slugbate and Mossbutter Real Estate Agency, sends us this description of his talk: Have you found the newe investment climate a bit on the chilly side? Nervous about stacks, bonds and mutal funds? Afraid of risky investments in Euclidean space? Then real estate in hyperbolic space is for you. 

    We will discuss the enormous potential of this new investment opportunity and describe the many fascinating properties of hyperbolic space that make it such an attractive place to live. This is the financial equivalent of the 1980s junk bonds. Done miss it! Bring your checkbook and credit references! No previous math or real estate background assumed! Recommend faculty and students alike! Rober Egert says "two fingers up!" 

    Mr. Slugbate's talk is sponsored by his brother-in-law, Colin Adams, of Williams College.

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    Nicholas  Bronn Wins Cambridge Scholarship      

    February 2002.   Nick Bronn has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue graduate study in Mathematics and Physics at  Cambridge University, England.  A GT press release on the award is here.

    Nick graduated Georgia Tech with several degrees, a BS in Mathematics, a BS in Physics and a Masters in Electrical Engineering. He was readily identifiable as the guy with blue and then blond hair.  Whats more, he had the highest genus of any math major.   (Sorry Rick P. You lose on this count.   ;-)) 

    Another GT undergrad, Jay Silver, has also won this scholarship.  Both were also finalists for a Churchill scholarship.  Jay Silver will pursue a MPhil in computers, speech, text and internet technology. 

    Besides getting an excellent undergraduate education at Georgia Tech, both also got support from GT in their preparations for these awards.  The GT Graduate School offices provide help in writing the applications and in giving mock interviews to those who advance in the competitions. 
     

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    Get your "@math.gatech.edu" computer accounts here!! 


     February 2002.  For those majors who were at the  VIGRE site visit, you asked for it, and here it is.  You can get a  "@math.gatech.edu" account here. 

    Math majors (both applied math and discrete math) will be allowed to use the School of Mathematics computer resources upon request.  Any such  student who is interested in having an account in the math.gatech.edu domain must come by Skiles 155 and present a photo id.  They must sign and abide by our standard user agreement.  Then they will get their username and password. These accounts will expire (with warning) approximately every 6 months.  They can be renewed provided the student is still majoring in math. 

    The computing facilities are great.  Enjoy! 
     

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    Professors Basu and Ghrist win CAREER awards 

    Febuary 2002.  Professors Saugata Basu and Robert Ghrist have been awarded CAREER awards by the National Science Foundation.  Congratulations to both.   These are great honors for these two.  Here is the lead paragraph from the description of the program. 
     
     

    The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards for new faculty members. The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st 
    century. CAREER awardees will be selected on the basis of creative career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution. Such plans should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of integrated contributions to research and education. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from new faculty 
    members at all CAREER eligible institutions.

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    David Eger sends word from Budapest  

    January 2002.  David Eger, double major in computing and applied math, is attending the Semester Abroad in Budapest.  This program has a special emphasis in mathematics.    David writes: 
     

    BSM is outstanding!  Highly reccommended for Math majors......Budapest is wonderful!  They're using Rudin's Real and Complex Analysis for 
    their Measure theory course and my goodness -- it is one of the most beautiful texts I have ever seen! 

    For more information about David, go here.
     

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    Patty Pichardo's Student paper wins prize  at Annual Meeting 

     January 2002.  Patty Pichardo, and two other undergraduates in California, presented a student paper at the American Math Society's annual meeting in San Diego CA.  The paper was given one of 10 prizes, out of 90 papers presented.  Way to go. 

    The paper was the result of their work at an Research Experience for Undergrads held every summer at a University in Puerto Rico.    Their paper concerned a rather surprising lemma in algebraic geometry due to Sturmfles.  It concerns a graph G, the set of spanning trees T of G and the set of edges E of G.  Consider the polynomial  rings R(T) and R(E), so R(T) is the ring of polynomials  whose variables are the spanning trees  T.  Likewise, R(E) is the ring of polynomials in the variables E.    Consider the map f which sends each spanning tree T to the product of the edges in T.  This map extends to a ring homorphism from R(T) to R(E).  The surprising fact is that the kernel of f consists only of second degree polynomials in T.  The paper presents certain improvements of that lemma. 

    The REU that Patty attended is held every year, and has a special emphasis on recruting Hispanic students. 

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    VIGRE/GT Funded!   

    December 2001. The School of Mathematics VIGRE grant is to be funded by the National Science Foundation. 
    This grant will provide funds for Postdoctral Fellowships, Graduate Student Fellowships 
    and Research Experience for Undergraduates. 

    What does the last part mean? Follow this link to find out.