Department of Mathematics
October 1, 2010
/
UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS SEMINAR
The next seminar will be
DATE:
MONDAY, October 4th
Time &
4:15pm – Refreshments in the Math Common Room, Bailey 204
Location:
4:30pm – Seminar in Bailey 207
In this seminar, which should be particularly attractive to math (or physics) majors who are or will
be typing a thesis, Union College’s own Professor Chris Hardin will present the following talk
TITLE: Typesetting with LaTeX
ABSTRACT: LaTeX (“Lah-tech”), developed by Leslie Lamport
(and built on top of Donald Knuth's TeX) is the typesetting
software used for most mathematical publishing today (and is
also popular among computer scientists and physicists).
Naturally, it can handle mathematical material such as
but it has other virtues such as being freely available and well
suited for highly structured documents. This talk will give an
introductory tour of LaTeX (and related tools such as BibTeX, for
bibliographies), with an eye towards using it to produce a thesis.
Professor Kim Plofker, Plenary Speaker and Award Presenter at The
International Congress of Mathematicians: Her Reflections on the Experience
The International Congress of Mathematicians is the quadrennial meeting of the International
Mathematical Union; it's reminiscent of the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings of the American
Mathematical Society/Mathematical Association of America in the US, in that it consists of several
thousand mathematicians milling around a large conference center looking for coffee. But the ICM
is generally held in some location outside of the US, and is especially notable for hosting the award
of the major international mathematical prizes: the Fields Medals, which need no introduction; the
Nevanlinna Prize, awarded since 1981 for outstanding contributions in mathematical aspects of
information sciences; the Gauss Prize (since 2006) for applications of mathematics; and the Chern
Medal (new in 2010) for outstanding achievements in mathematics.
You can see information about this year's awardees at http://www.icm2010.in/prize-winners-2010,
which also has links to two awards special to this particular meeting: the new Leelavati Award for
outstanding contributions to public outreach in mathematics, and the bestowing of the 2009
Kenneth O. May Prize and Medal in the History of Mathematics, awarded by the International
Commission for the History of Mathematics. (The joint award to the historians Ivor GrattanGuinness and R. C. Gupta was officially made last year at the International Congress of History of
Science and Technology in Budapest, but since Prof. Gupta couldn't be there, it was decided that I
should present the medal to him separately at the Hyderabad ICM.)
(Continued on Page 2)
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The August 2010 ICM in Hyderabad, India was the first to be held in a developing country, and also the first
one I ever attended, so I'm not sure how it differed from previous ICMs, except of course it had a lot more
Indian participants! I didn't get to the opening ceremony on the first day because my train from Calicut
arrived that afternoon; I wasn't too sorry to miss it, because since the IMU Prizes are traditionally presented
in the opening ceremony by the head of state of the host country, the presence of the President of India
meant that the whole conference location was absolutely rigid with security. I did get to some of the general
talks by the prizewinners on subsequent days, though. Two that I found particularly accessible and fun
were the talk by the Nevanlinna Prize winner, Daniel Spielman, about ways of solving systems of linear
equations efficiently, and the lecture by the Leelavati Prize winner, the BBC filmmaker Simon Singh, about
the making of his documentary "Fermat's Last Theorem".
The Congress was a pretty long-drawn-out event, with four full days from the opening ceremony on the 19th
to the 22nd, a day off on the 23rd, and another four days from the 24th to the closing ceremony on the 27th.
Mornings were devoted to plenary talks in the largest of the auditoriums, and afternoons were split between
other general talks and specialized presentations in separate sessions. Evening events included a
conference dinner, a play, a performance of traditional Indian dance (I went to that, it was good), and a
performance of traditional Indian vocal music (I had to miss that one). In the meantime, of course, there
was lots of discussion and chat and catching up with colleagues. It was great to pick up the threads with so
many colleagues from overseas, and particularly from India. It was the first time that I'd seen Prof. Gupta
since I met with him in India to talk about my doctoral dissertation work back in 1994, and I was really
thrilled to be participating in his May Medal award ceremony.
(All
the
general
talks
and
ceremonies
are
on
archived
video
at
http://www.icm2010.com/archievedvideos.asp and are listed in the schedule, which can be found at
http://www.icm2010.org.in/scientific-program/schedule-of-icm2010
Spielman's talk is at 21 Aug 13:45, but I think Simon Singh's talk may not be available on video. My plenary
lecture is the one at 26 Aug 11:30, and the presentation of the May Medal to R. C. Gupta by me is in the
Closing Ceremony starting at about 00:30.)
Here are a couple of things I noticed just about the general setting of the event rather than any of the
mathematical or administrative details:
- India is a place where it really stands out how, er, un-flamboyantly the average Western mathematician
dresses for a professional conference. Here are all the Indian female participants in elegant brilliantly
patterned saris or salwar suits, and the male Indian (and other Asian) participants in suits or at least
"academic formal" button-down shirts and dress slacks; and there are all the "firangs" (a not-entirely-PC
term for Westerners) in their scruffy T-shirts and cargo pants in faded black, beige, khaki, and various other
shades of dirt. I wore my Indian suits and piles of jewelry so I'd blend in better.
- The refreshments were handled in a quite simple and sensible way, which for all I know may be standard
at ICMs: each attendee's registration packet included a book of dated coupons, some for each of the days
of the conference. Four of each day's coupons were good for a tea or coffee at any of the many tea
counters set up in the conference center, and two of them could be used for lunch items in the cafeteria.
Lunch options included a plain tinfoil pack of some delicious vegetarian or non-vegetarian curry and rice
dish, yogurt cups, sandwiches, and boxed juices. (You could also just pay cash for whatever you wanted at
a tea or snack counter or the cafeteria.) Anyway, the eating space in the cafeteria was a large carpeted
area, about half of which was full of small tables at standing height, the kind you see at commuter cafes
where people just grab a bite standing up. But there were no chairs. Traditionally, Indians don't sit on
chairs at tables for meals, but take off their shoes and gather in circles on a rug or mat on the floor. So the
first few days of the conference had all the foreign participants eating their lunch standing at the tables on
one side of the lunchroom, and most of the Indian participants eating their lunch in groups sitting on the
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carpet on the other side. After a bit, some of the foreigners started sitting down on the floor to eat with their
backs against the wall and their shoes on. Then on the last couple of days, there were foreigners sitting in
circles with their shoes off too.
- It was getting toward the end of the monsoon season during the conference, so it was still quite warm and
very humid (the conference center was very air-conditioned, though), with periodic drizzles or downpours,
mostly brief. The registration packet also included an umbrella with the ICM 2010 insignia, and after getting
caught in the rain once or twice, people learned to keep their umbrellas with them! I came prepared with my
own Union College umbrella, which I left in Calicut to reduce the amount of my luggage, so it's probably
warding off the tail end of the monsoon from some hotel worker's family members at this moment.
- Other notable events included a trip with some colleagues to Osmania University in Hyderabad and then
the ICM satellite conference on history of mathematics in Calicut, which was great, but I won't go into all that
now!
At present I'm living in a small town in the Perigord region of France, sharing a house with the family of a
colleague whose husband is studying prehistoric cave art here. So the kids go off to school and Yann goes
off to the caves, and Clemency and I settle down to some work on Sanskrit astronomical tables and similar
stuff. See you in January!
Resources for Students
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Problem Solving Seminar On Wednesdays, in Bailey 207 from 1:00 to 1:45 Professors Paul
Friedman and Chris Hardin will be running a problem-solving seminar. While intended to help
students prepare for this year’s Putnam Exam, these fun workshops are open to everyone who likes
to play with math problems. Join us!
Calculus Help Center Having WeBWorK woes? Come to the CHC Sunday through Thursday
nights, from 7:30-10:00 in the Sorum House Seminar room for free calculus tutoring!
Interested in Wall Street? (No, not the new movie) Two Union College alumni, Andy Andreo ’05
and Pete Herbert ’83, both currently working at Goldman Sachs, will be holding an information
session on Monday, October 11, at 5pm in SSCI 016.
Interested in Accounting? The NYS Society of Certified Public Accountants will be hosing a dinner
event at the Wolfert’s Roost Country Club in Albany at which you can learn about accounting
careers. This will be on Thursday, October 28 from 5:00-8:00pm. Transportation will be provided.
However, space is limited and is available on a first-come, first-serve basis. To reserve a spot,
contact Connie DiLallo at the Becker Career Center at 388-6176 by Monday, October 11, 5pm.
Problem of the Newsletter: October 1, 2010
Last week’s problem drew solutions from a pair of alumni, Andy MacKenzie ‘09, currently in New York, and
Andrew Trelease, ’10, currently in Los Angeles. Congratulations to these two! A solution to the problem
has been posted on the bulletin boards around Bailey Hall.
Here is this week’s problem: Consider a set X with a binary operation * on X, that is, for each a, b in X,
a*b is also in S. Assume that for all a, b in S, (a*b)*a=b. Prove that a*(b*a)=b for all a, b in S.
Will the undergraduates be able to outdo the alums on this one?
Professor Friedman will accept solutions to this problem until noon Thursday, October 7th. Email your
solution to him ([email protected]) or put it in his mailbox in the Math Department’s office on the second
floor of Bailey Hall.