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Mentoring students through Critical
Transition Points.
Lessons Learned.
Benefits.
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Administrative support is crucial!
Secretarial support.
◦ W9s, waivers, created reqs, reserving rooms,
reviewing applications, details all over the place!
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Departmental support…
Two differing unyielding bureaucracies!
FIND ADVOCATES!
BELIEVE IN THE PROJECT!!
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Students truly touched and inspired.
Other faculty may be motivated.
◦ Honeywell internship.
◦ Robotics.
◦ AMP grant.
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I get challenged by the best and brightest
students!
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Mathematical Biology.
◦ Disease vectors
◦ Cancer growth
◦ Bone growth
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3d simulations and animations using maple
Abstract algebra applied to the real world.
Algorithmic solutions to mathematical
problems.
MCTP Module
Roberto Ribas
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Many important mathematics problems can
ONLY be solved with algorithms.
Many problems are easier to solve with
algorithms than with “regular” math.
Algorithms can verify a solution found
traditionally
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Largest prime number
◦ Dr. Curtis Cooper of UCM recently found it! (He has
had it twice before…)
◦ Uses all of the campus computers after people log
off to search.
◦ 10,000th prime #. (Had to leave the computer
running for 30 hours to get it!)
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You have $10 to gamble on a fair coin toss,
and you must bet the same percent of your
money on every toss. If you fall below $0.01
you are eliminated from playing. If your
money goes over $1 million you stop. What
percent should you bet to maximize your
chance of making $1 million?
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A simulation can double check a
mathematical solution.
◦ Famous mars lender crash that flew the exact path
it was programmed to fly.
◦ Radar tracking mode, one team had worked in
meters, the other in feet… missile missed every
target!
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Three doors, one has a prize behind it. You
pick a door. Host opens one of the other
doors, then asks, “do you want to keep the
door you have, or switch to the remaining
door?”
Should you stay? Switch? Or are they the
same?
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http://marilynvossavant.com/game-showproblem/
Multiple PhD’s in mathematics wrote in, with
some condescending and wrong replies!
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If you flip coins, which sequence are you
likely to see first, or are they equally likely?
HHT or THH ?
Extension: given any two patterns of coins,
find the probability of which will occur first.