Euler’s Birthday!

Unless you’re that one person who uses Bing, you probably noticed that today’s Google doodle is in honor of Leonhard Euler’s 306th birthday:

Happy Birthday Euler!

If you look closely, you’ll see shoutout’s to Blog favorites like the Euler Characteristic, Euler’s Formula, and the Königsberg Bridges Problem (which was when Euler simultaneously invented topology and graph theory!).

Those Wacky Multi-Billionares!

Recently there was an auction for Nortel’s (a bankrupt telecommunication company) 6,000+ patents. One of the companies bidding was Google.  During the course of the auction, among their bids was:

$3.14159 billion. We have to say that if you bid an extra$0.14159 billion (aka $141,159,000) so that your bid is amusing, you’ve got too much money on your hands. (Pssst, Google, in this heat we could use a swimming pool at Blog HQ) In the end, a consortium led by Apple won the auction with a boring bid of$4.5 billion.

Look here for more details.

Theorem Machine

Are you doing an REU this summer like Patrick Orchard?  Or are you just thinking about math on your own time?  Either way, no doubt you’re looking for some new theorems.

Well, look no further!  David Simmons-Duffin has an automated theorem writing machine available here. Even better, the theorems come pre-proven!  For example:

Or:

Or:

Okay, now that you have your theorems (with proof!), you need a journal to publish them in.  Fortunately, thanks to Kimball Martin, et. al. there is no such thing as unpublishable mathematics:

Has John Yossarian's work appeared here yet?

Cafe Plaid is Irrational and Transcendental

Our own Cafe Plaid has shown their true colors.  As you know, when you order your sandwich/soup/salad/cookie at Cafe Plaid they give you a number for your table.  Not willing to settle for the usual natural numbers, we’ve recently seen them using:

Kaplansky, Lucy vs. Irving

Lucy K.

We wanted to let you know of a musician named Lucy Kaplansky who’ll be playing at the Performing Arts Studio here in Norman on Sunday.  She is first got her Ph.D. in clinical psychology and then traded in to be became a singer-songwriter.  She’s sung with Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams and Richard Shindell.  She’s an accomplished musician and it’s a great fortune that she’ll be stopping at Norman on her latest tour.

Now you may be saying, “Hey OU Math Club Blog, that’s cool, but what’s that have to do with math?”  Well, to give you a hint, let us point out that Lucy Kaplansky is known to sing “A Song About $\pi$” if the audience requests.

In all the bygone ages,
Philosophers and sages
Have meditated on the circle’s mysteries.
From Euclid to Pythagoras,
From Gauss to Anaxag’ras,
Their thoughts have filled the libr’ies bulging histories.
And yet there was elation
Throughout the whole Greek nation
When Archimedes made his mighty computation!
He said:

CHORUS

3 1 41 Oh (5) my (9), here’s (2) a (6) song (5) to (3) sing (5) about (8,9) pi (7).
Not a sigma or mu but a well-known Greek letter too.
You can have your alphas and the great phi-bates, and omega for a friend,
But that’s just what a circle doesn’t have–a beginning or an end.
3 1 4 1 5 9 is a ratio we don’t define;
Two pi times radii gives circumf’rence you can rely;
If you square the radius times the pi, you will get the circle’s space.
Here’s a song about pi, fit for a mathematician’s embrace.

Now you may be saying, “Okay, that’s slightly strange.  Why would she sing a song about $\pi$?  Well, to give you another hint, the song was written by her dad, Irving Kaplansky.

Irving K.

Who’s Irving Kaplansky?  He’s a very well known mathematician who was at the University of Chicago for many years and did a lot of research in abstract algebra.  In addition to publishing over 150 research papers, he was musically inclined, wrote a number of math related songs, and, apparently, passed along his music gene to his daughter Lucy Kaplansky.  If you can, you should check out her concert on Sunday!

If nothing else, you should go in honor of the upcoming $\pi$ day!