Week of September 28, 2009 xxxxxx
Photos from recent activities
Krishna Athreya (left) enjoying a moment at the Ames Symposium on Probability and Statistics, a conference held in honor of his 70th birthday (which does not occur until December). At right, Athreya thanks organizers Sunder Sethuraman, Ananda Weerasange, Alex Roiterschtein and Arka Chosh.
Grad students Fernando Miranda-Mendoza and Tracy McKay - and future grad student, Thomas Row - recruit prospective grad students at the Field of Dreams conference in Iowa City over the weekend. At right, the Row men take a break from hard work.
In addition to food and frolic, the Fall Math picnic offered non-contact sports. At left, it's grad student versus faculty member as Andrii Berdnikov and Sunder Sethuraman mull over their chess game. Can you tell by looking at the picture whose turn it is? Can you tell who is ahead? Can you predict (mathematically, of course) who won?
Photos courtesy Leslie Hogben.
The 70th William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition is an annual college-level mathematics competition. Last year about 2500 students from over 400 colleges and universities
participated in the contest.
Who may compete: The competition is open to any regularly enrolled undergraduate
student who has not yet received a college degree. No individual may participate in the
competition more than four times.
When and where: The 2009 exam will be given on Saturday December 5, 2009
in Room 305 Carver. The exam is given in two sessions, a morning session and an
afternoon session. The morning session runs from 9:00am until 12:00 noon, and the
afternoon session from 2:00pm until 5:00pm.
What is the test like? The Putnam Exam consists of twelve problems. Six of these
problems are given during the morning session, and an second six during the afternoon
session. Each problem is worth 10 points, for a total of 120 points possible. All necessary
work to justify an answer and all necessary steps of a proof must be shown clearly to obtain
full credit. Some partial credit may be given, but only for signi cant progress towards a
solution. The top twenty- ve contestants nationally will be awarded cash prizes from the
Putnam Prize Fund.
Can I practice? Yes! Problems and some solutions from past exams are available online. In addition, there will be weekly practice sessions, 4:00-5:30 every Thursday afternoon,
starting October 1, in a room TBA.
To sign up, email your name, year in school, Ames/campus address, home address and phone number to Elgin Johnston (396C Carver) by 12:00 noon, Thursday, October 8. For more information, call 4-0302 or
e-mail ehjohnst@iastate.edu.
CESMEE Seminar Series
David Bressoud (Macalester College) will present Perspectives on the transition to college mathematics
Monday, September 28 at 2:10 p.m. in 2030 Morrill Hall
David Bressoud is a Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College and President-Elect of the Mathematical Association of America. He will be presenting on the effects of distorting high school mathematical preparation in order to get more students into high school calculus and the effect this has on students as they enter college.
Presented by the Center for Excellence in Science, Mathematics & Engineering Education.
Save the date: October 10. This conference is part of the Iowa PDE seminar series which has been hosted alternatively between Iowa State University and University of Iowa since 1985. The mission of the Iowa PDE seminar is to bring together experts and young researchers in Iowa to discuss recent research advances in the field of partial differential equations. The seminar of this fall will expose participants to some of the current trends and recently developed tools in PDEs, numerical PDEs and related applications. Everyone interested in the theme of this seminar is welcome to attend.
MORE 2009
Monday, October 5 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids
Hold this date:
National Science Foundation workshop at UI on October 8.
Funding opportunities
Internal and external grant opportunities will be listed here throughout the year. A link to this page is located on the departmental home page: Funding Opportunities.
Deadlines this week
Remember to check the departmental calendar for deadlines. e
Colloquia and Seminars this week
Elliptic Curves and Modular Forms
Monday, September 28 at 2:10 p.m. in Carver 124. Facilitator: Ling Long
Combinatorics & Number Theory Seminar
Monday, September 28 at 4:10 p.m. in Carver 232. Eli Stines on Valuatiion domains.
Computational & Applied Math
Monday, September 28 at 4:10 p.m. in Carver 202. Facilitator: Paul Sacks & Hailiang Liu
Matrix Group Seminar
Tuesday, September 29 at 10:00 a.m. in 204 Carver Hall
Kenneth Driessel on The Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff Formula
Discrete Mathematics Seminar - Cancelled in favor of Griggs colloquium
Tuesday, September 29at 2:10 p.m. in 174 Carver
Mathematics Colloquia
Tuesday, September 29 at 4:10 p.m. in 290 Carver
Carolina Distinguished Professor and Chair Jerrold R. Griggs (University of South Carolina), Venn diagrams, necklaces, and chain decompositions of posets
Graduate Student Seminar Series
Wednesday, September 30 at 4:10 p.m. in 204 Carver. Elgin Johnston on Teaching do's and maybe a few don'ts: a discussion
Matrix Group Seminar
Thursday, October 1 at 1:10 p.m. in 190 Carver Hall
Thursday, October 1 at 10:00 a.m. in 204 Carver Hall
Kenneth Driessel on The Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff Formula
Mathematics Colloquia
Thursday, October 1
Arash Rafiey (Simon Fraser University, Canada) Proper interval digraphs, min-max orderings, and their connection with minimum cost homomorphism problem
Algebraic Combinatorics Seminar
Friday, October 2 at 3:10 p.m. in 290 Carver
Transitions
Graduate student birthdays this week:
9/29 Shu Yang
Transitions features announcements regarding life transitions, i.e., family, job, etc. of those associated with the Department may be published at the request of the individual. Send submissions to tuttle@iastate.edu
