I’m still enjoying my new-found freedom that comes with the end of the semester. I’ve gotten some research done and I’ve been able to catch up on some reading. One article that I found particularly interesting was “Quartic Polynomials and the Golden Ration,” by Harland Totland, from the June 2009 issue of Mathematics Magazine. This…
Category: Math
Computing integer sums using l’Hôpital’s rule
Now that the busy semester is over, I’ve been able to catch up on some reading. Yesterday I read William Dunham’s article “When Euler Met l’Hôpital,” in the February 2009 issue of Mathematics Magazine. The aim of the article is to showcase some of Euler’s applications of l’Hôpital’s rule in his Institutiones calculi differentialis (1755)….
Let’s go to the carnival
The 52nd Carnival of Mathematics is underway over at The Number Warrior. I’m glad it was resurrected. Check it out! Two other mathematical tidbits. Clue in yesterday’s NY Times crossword: Calculus pioneer. The answer: EULER. Also in today’s NY Times, the headline: U.S. Jobless Rate Hits 8.9%, but Pace of Losses Eases. When I first…
Symmetry groups of viral doilies
Are you looking for interesting examples to use in your abstract algebra course to illustrate planar objects with rotational and reflective symmetries? Tired of the usual regular polygons and corporate logos. Already shown your class ambigrams? Feeling pressured to inject biology into your mathematics courses? Look no farther. My colleague sent me a link to the website…
Maypole braid group (solutions)
Yesterday I wrote about the maypole braid group and left two questions for homework. Here are the solutions. The first question was to show that the following maypole braids could not be represented as products of . Observe that each time we apply , one strand moves clockwise and one moves counterclockwise. Thus there is…
The maypole braid group
Over the weekend I attended a May Day party thrown by one of my colleagues. During the party they had a traditional maypole dance. An example of a maypole dance is shown at left. A maypole is a tall pole with colorful ribbons attached to the top that are fanned out in a cone shape….
Mathematical Google logos
Google loves to celebrate holidays and events by displaying custom logos on their website. All of their past custom logos are now available for browsing at Google Logos. I was happy to see that there are several mathematical ones. Here are some that I found (there are many science and technology-related logos that I’m not…
Recommended readings (4/27/09)
Barack Obama speaks to the 146th Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences Calculus Made Easy: Being A Very Simplest Introduction To Those Beautiful Methods Of Reckoning Which Are Generally Called By The Terrifying Names Of The Differential Calculus And The Integral Calculus (2nd Ed., 1914), by Silvanus P. Thompson ~ What one fool…
Happy birthday Michael Atiyah
There is a article about Sir Michael Atiyah in the Times Online in honor of his 80th birthday, “Maths and the bomb: Sir Michael Atiyah at 80.”
How the arch got its shape
The most recent video podcast episode of Science Friday is a short but nice discussion of the mathematics behind the St. Louis Arch: How the arch got its shape.
David Richeson: Division by Zero 