Last week was a busy week for the MCSP department at Roanoke College. March 14 is known as Pi Day to many people, and it is a day celebrating the number Pi = π ≈ 3.14159… π cannot be written as a fraction, which is part of the reason why it is so intriguing. People spend…
Tuesday, Feb 9 began as a normal day. It was cold, as a day in February should be. But things got a little heated in Trexler around noon, when the Math Club held its first annual Integration Bowl. What on Earth is an Integration Bowl? Well, the Math Club members were divided into three teams-…
If you think that math and art are opposites, you will be surprised by Upcycled Theorems, the gallery created by Jan Minton’s “Mathematics and Art” class, HNRS 301. A wide range of connections between math and art are explored in this course. The students demonstrated three of them in an open house in New Hall…
The odds are that you don’t know the full significance of today’s date, November 13, 2015. Sure, it’s another Friday the 13th . (Did you know that the 13th day of the month falls on Friday more often than any other day of the week? That’s an odd fact!) More importantly, if you write the…
What are mathematics classes like at Roanoke College? Different. Challenging. Fun. To take one example, Calculus 2 has a regular lab. What in the world is done in a calculus lab? Among other topics, we look at rabbit and fox populations, baseballs and golf balls in motion, a cube that curves, and the classic video…
Phillip Barbolla explains his research to an interested student. What is life like at Roanoke College? Busy! A full weekend got started on Friday, 10/9, at Fintel Library with the Experiential Learning Showcase. All three MCSP disciplines were well represented as Phillip Barbolla from math, Dio Beck from physics, and Natalie Wilkinson from computer science…
Those of us of a certain (large) age will remember the colorful mod art of the late 1960s; think Peter Max or the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. Professor Jan Minton’s HNRS 301: Mathematics and Art class has decorated a Trexler stairwell with what is truly mod art. Modular arithmetic, that is. An example of modular arithmetic…
In preparation for The Pi Day of the Century, President Maxey installed the coconut cream pie of the day on Dr. Chris Lee’s face today right after lunch. Since the number π is 3.14—, March 14 is officially Pi Day, and has become a popular day to celebrate our inner geek. This year’s Pi Day…
Roanoke College has a long history of basketball success. Current men’s coach Page Moir and recently retired women’s coach Susan Dunagan hold the records for most ODAC conference wins. A lesser known, but more important, tradition is MCSP majors in the starting lineup. The list includes James (JP) Pennix, the well-named Ken Sine, Bryant Lee,…
The second floor of Trexler is haunted by intermittent clattering sounds! Actually, there is no need for a paranormal investigation, it’s just Drs. Taylor (Dave) and Childers (Adam) playing dice games. For Dave, this was partly research for his book The Mathematics of Games: An Introduction to Probability, recently published by CRC Press. The book…
