Math Dept 2023-24 Newsletter 2

Monday, 25 September 2023

Past newsletters can now be reached via the department website.

[Click on “About” and then “News and Events”].

Newsletter is sent out when there is something new.

Please send entries by the end of the workweek–Ed.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



MEETINGS AND SEMINARS IN THE DEPARTMENT



TUESDAYS



Seminar on Topological Semigroups

The seminar will include applications to Ramsey theory.

Tuesdays at 10.10 am.

On Sep 19, John Johnson of Ohio State talked about “Sets with Positive relative Density.”

Contact coordinator for zoom invite.

Coordinator Dennis Davenport



----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Combinatorics Seminar

Contact coordinator Lou Shapiro for zoom link.



WEDNESDAYS



Applied Math Reading Seminar



Coordinator: Katie Gurski, Yeona Kang

-----------------------------------------------------------

Math team/Math Club meetings

Organizer: Jill McGowan

-----------------------------------------------------------



FRIDAYS



Undergraduate Math Seminar

Fridays, 2:45 -3pm, room 210, Annex 3

There will be pizza and refreshments. The speaker of the first seminar on Sep 29 is Cade Boggan on Implementation of the Near Field Refractor Problem Solver Algorithm.

Graduate Student Seminar

3pm, friday, room 213 and on zoom.

On Friday, Sep 22, junior math major Jordan Green talked about his research with the Georgetown REU during the summer, on Random Walks and Triple Factorization of Riordan Arrays.

Contact Shakuan Frankson for more information.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Mathematics Department Colloquium

Fridays, 4.10 to 5pm. Room 213 and zoom.

Friday, Sep 26

William Velez, University of Arizona

On friday, Sep 22, our alumnus Asamoah Nkwanta of Morgan State University spoke about Linear Trees, Lattice Walks and RNA arrays.

The colloquium schedule and videos are available at this website: https://deleo.website/HU/colloquium.html



TALKS AND WORKSHOPS OUTSIDE DEPARTMENT



  1. (Thanks to Dennis Davenport)

2024 Blackwell-Tapia Conference, Nov 15-16

The 2024 Blackwell-Tapia conference would take place at ICERM (Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics).

The biennial Blackwell-Tapia Conference and Prize honors two seminal figures who inspired a generation of African American, Latino/Latina, and Native American students to pursue careers in mathematics—David H. Blackwell, the first African-American member of the National Academy of Science, and Richard A. Tapia, winner of the National Medal of Science in 2010.



Infinite Possibilities Conference, April 18-20, 2024

The 2024 conference will take place at IMSI (Institute for Mathematical and Statistical Innovation). It is a national conference that is designed to promote, educate, encourage, and support minority women underrepresented in mathematics and statistics.



2. (Thanks to Tim Myers) Southeastern Atlantic regional conference on differential equations (SEARCDE)

 The URL  below  connects to information pertaining to the 41st  SEARCDE. 


     This year this annual conference will take place at Florida A&M  University in Tallahassee during the weekend of Nov 18-19. 


More information






ANNOUNCEMENTS



1. (Thanks to Roberto de Leo): The colloquium schedule and videos of talks from Spring semester are available at this website: https://deleo.website/HU/colloquium-S23.html







SCHOLARSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

(from various sources)



1. Opportunities at DHS

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Transportation Security Laboratory (TSL) Visiting Scientist Program is offering postdoctoral fellowships for recent graduates. Fellows will join the TSL in a new endeavor in threat detection technology and applied research, specifically related to synthetic data generation. The need to develop synthetic methods to evaluate new Deep Learning algorithms is paramount and the proposed research is new and innovative.

The project involves a team of TSL staff and researchers. The program is seeking recent graduates that have experience in modeling and large data sets and have a foundational knowledge of the physics or engineering applicable in learning to create high-fidelity synthetic data.

More information and application



2. Opportunities at Wells-Fargo

Both graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to apply for the many data and analytics related opportunities.

More information



3. DOE – Energy efficiency and Conservation fellowships

Under the guidance of a mentor, fellows will support the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program while learning about the role of a Project Officer in managing Federal grants to state, local, and Tribal governments. Applicants must be US citizens/residents who received their degrees (Bachelor/Masters/Doctoral) within last 60 months.

More information





INTERESTING ARTICLES AND WEBSITES



    1. Richard Schwartz solves Mobius strip minimum size problem

Brown University's Schwartz has proved the Halpern-Weaver conjecture. He showed that embedded Möbius strips made out of paper can only be constructed with an aspect ratio greater than √3, which is about 1.73.

Story in Scientific American

2. Interview with Andrew Granville on the nature of proofs (and AI and future of mathematics)

In this article titled Why Mathematical Proof Is a Social Compact” Number theorist Andrew Granville talks about what mathematics really is — and why objectivity is never quite within reach.

Quanta article


The article is based on the following essay by Granville on the same topic, but with more detail about the new theorem proving virtual engines.


3. How Aristotle created the computer

Atlantic article