Math Club on Wednesday!

Dr. Paul wondering who stole all the books from his shelves..

Dr. Sean Paul, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, will be speaking in the Math Club this

Wednesday, April 3rd at 5 pm in PHSC 1105.

Fun Fact:  Dr. Paul is a Sooner!  He graduated from OU in 1996 and then went to Princeton for graduate school.  If you’re thinking about going on to grad school, here is a great chance to ask him for “real world” advice about how he went from OU to Princeton.

Dr. Paul will be talking about “The Cayley GKZ Theory of Discriminants, Resultants, and Multidimensional Determinants”.  Here’s the abstract:

When do two complex number polynomials have a common root? When does a given polynomial have a double root? What is the determinant of a two by two by two matrix (the third “two” is not a typo) ? What is the determinant of a sequence (i.e. complex) of matrices?

We will give answers and hints to some of these questions in the talk.

— Dr. Paul’s abstract

There will also be the canonical Free Pizza!

Math Club in Denton!

Do you live in the Metroplex?  Our friends to the south at the University of North Texas are having an undergraduate math talk by Nolan Wallach from UC San Diego.  It’s

This Friday, March 22nd in Room 105 of the UNT General Academic Building at 2:00 pm.

Attendees are invited to join us at the pre-lecture reception (cookies, coffee and tea will be served) that begins at 1:30 PM, upstairs, in room 472.

The title is “What is Quantum Entanglement?” and the abstract and other details can be found here.

Math Club on Wednesday, March 13th!

When it rains, it pours!  There is a Math Club this

Wednesday, March 13th, at 5 pm in PHSC 1105.

Dr. Crowell

The talk will be by Sean Crowell.  He earned his PhD from the OU math department last year and is now a postdoctoral researcher on south campus at the National Weather Center.  He is a mathematician working on the problem of modeling the weather and that’s what he’ll be talking about:

Title:  Using Mathematics to understand and predict the weather

Abstract:  All of us benefit from the enormous volume of weather observations and forecasts.  Where does all of that information come from?  Believe it or not, mathematical techniques are the foundation on which these different informational products rest. In this talk we’ll discuss how computers draw weather maps, how to use mathematics to track tornadoes, and how we use noisy observations and imperfect numerical weather prediction models to create a useful weather forecast.

And, naturally, there is the canonical Free Pizza!

By the Power of Google, we discovered that Sean is also a fellow math blogger.  You can read his posts here (as “That Weird Math Guy in Oklahoma that Loves Weather and Climate”).  That should be no surprise as Sean is keen on publicizing science and math and is a driving force behind Norman’s Science Cafe (In fact, there’s a Cafe tonight! Check Sean’s links for details.)

Apropos, we have to share the coolest thing we’ve seen this week.  It’s a real time map of the wind across the US.  Here is what the wind looks like right now:

“Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain”

Or, if you’re in Calc IV right now, it’s nothing but a vector field!

Math Club this Wednesday!

There is a Math Club this

Wednesday, March 6th at 5 pm in PSHC 1105!

Dr. Catherine Hall, the OU Math Department’s Undergraduate Advisor, is going to give you the run-down on undergraduate friendly conferences, REUs and other fun math activities you might not know about.   In particular, Dr. Hall went to TORUS (Texas-Oklahoma Research conference for Undergraduate Symposium) and wanted to share that experience with everybody.

And, of course, there’ll be the usual Free Pizza!

Good ol’ xkcd

Math Club with Adrienne Jablonski!

There will be the first Math Club of the semester on

Wednesday, February 6th at 5 pm in PHSC 1105.

As summer/graduation approaches, one’s thoughts turn to jobs.  Adrienne Jablonski will alk about jobs, internships, how to write a cover letter and a resume.  Don’t miss it!

Plus, there’ll be the usual Free Pizza!

Talk this Tuesday!

Dr. Deem

Dr. Michael Deem from Rice University will be giving a talk for the general public this Tuesday at OU.  It will be

Tuesday Jan. 29. 7:00 PM   George Lynn Cross Hall (GLCH) 123.

Even though he is a professor of Bioengineering, his talk is right in our wheelhouse:

Title:  In Search of Fundamental Mathematical Laws of Biology

Abstract: I will describe my participation over the past few years in an effort to find fundamental mathematical laws in biology.  I will discuss a theory for understanding the emergence of multi-scale, hierarchical structure in biology. I will describe how modular structure in proteins, genetics, and biological networks may arise and how it can be understood.  I will show the implications of the theory for engineering design, and I will discuss additional examples of structure formation in ecological food networks, developmental pathways, physiology, and social networks.  I will then turn to theories of the immune system and describe a theory of the immune response to vaccines.  I will illustrate this theory by application to design of the annual influenza vaccine.  I will use this theory to explain limitations in the vaccine for dengue fever and to suggest a transport-inspired amelioration of these limitations.

Who needs reality when you’ve got purity? (Click through for an explanation!)

(Sadly, there probably won’t be pizza.)

TORUS (Texas Oklahoma Research Undergrad Symposium)

Dr. Hall has let us know of a fantastic opportunity for OU undergrads.  The TORUS (Texas Oklahoma Research Undergraduate Symposium) is a conference for undergrads to present (or hear about) research in math.  This year it is February 23rd and will be held at at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, TX.

If you are interested in presenting, you can register at their website:

Undergraduate students are invited to give talks on topics related to mathematics. The topics can be from any area of mathematics including pure mathematics, applied mathematics, history of mathematics, mathematics education, probability or statistics. Talks will be 12-15 minutes long with time allowed for questions. For a list of student abstracts from the 2011 TORUS conference go here.

– from the TORUS website

If you are interested in going to the TORUS conference, contact Dr. Hall in the OU Math department office (her email is on the department website).  She tells us there are already 4 students planning to go, so it should be fun!

Fractals in Math Club!

Our own Dr. Nikola Petrov will be at Math Club this

Wednesday, December 5th at 5 pm in PHSC 1105.

He’ll talk about “Self-similarity, Fractals and Dimensions”.  It’s the story of broccoli.  Really!

There will be Free Pizza!, and if you ask nicely he might serenade you!

The silver throated Dr. Petrov

Dr. Petrov’s talk reminded us of a joke we heard recently*:

“What does the B. in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?”

“What?”

“Benoit B. Mandelbrot!”
Ages ago, Dr. Schmidt showed us that Google provided an online Google Maps style explorer for the Mandelbrot set.  Very cool!

It lets you discover pictures like this (since the Mandelbrot set is infinitely complex, if you dig deep enough, you’ll be in undiscovered territory.  You’ll see things no-one has ever seen before!):

* If you don’t get it, go to the talk!

Math Club @Home: Dara O Briain School of Hard Sums

Apparently the British are keen on maths.  They also have a prime-time TV show which is a comedy math competition.  It’s the fantastic Dara O Briain School of Hard Sums:

If you click through to youtube you can find more episodes.

Thanks to Sean Carroll for posting about the show on his blog.

Math Club @Home: Numberphile

The delightfully low-tech (you can’t beat brown wrapping paper and sharpies!) British version of Vi Hart is James Grime and his co-conspirators at Numberphile.  They make “Videos about numbers and stuff”.

Here’s a couple of their videos to get you started:

Why 1 is not a prime.

And the black hole forming Graham’s Number:

You can see these and much, much more on their website.