Jon Marino, a senior mathematics major, now counts among his honors the top student research prize from the spring meeting of the Maryland-DC-Virginia section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), held on April 26 at James Madison University. Marino earned first place in the student paper competition, which had a record number (23) of…
Look out everyone, there’s a new “Smith & Minton” around, and it has nothing to do with calculus! Well, perhaps it has something to do with calculus; this past weekend at the spring meeting of the Maryland, DC, and Virginia Section of the Mathematical Association of America, Roland was presented the John M. Smith Teaching…
So, there’s this traveling salesman who wants to …. Wait! This is not the prelude to a bad joke, this is a mathematical problem of current importance. The traveling salesman is headquartered in city 0, and needs to visit cities 1, 2, 3, …, n on a business trip and then return to city 0.…
April is Math Awareness Month, and this year’s theme of “Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery” has been wonderfully illustrated by videos and activities at mathaware.org. Some of these topics were previewed in the March “Pun and Taylor” magic show. On April 16, two more magical topics were covered by Dr. Karin Saoub and Dr. Hannah Robbins.…
Many of our best students were honored at the 2013-14 Roanoke College Awards Banquet on April 2. Senior Scholar awards went to TJ Kemper in Computer Science, Jon Marino in Mathematics, and Rachel Andrews in Physics. Maya Shende won the Frank Munley Physics Award, and Connor Sampson the Physics Society Award. Jon Marino won the…
Robert Allen of the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse gave a very lively MCSP Conversation Series talk on March 18. This was not a surprise, as Robert is a very funny and upbeat man and had given a thoroughly entertaining talk two years ago. However, when someone gives a talk with the title “Zombies, Vampires,…
Part math and part magic, the March 13 MCSP Conversation Series talk “Penn and Teller Pun and Taylor Present Mathematical Magic and Mystery” entertained a large audience in Massengill Auditorium. This was the very off-Vegas presentation of Mathematics professors Roland “Pun” Minton and Dave “Taylor” Taylor. Some of their tricks are mathematically-based magic tricks. For…
The Sloan Sports Analytic Conference (SSAC) is sports stats heaven. At the 2014 conference in Boston on February 28 – March 1, “The Man” showed up in many guises (Bill James, Nate Silver, Malcolm Gladwell, Phil Jackson) and we heard from Boston’s sports nobility (owners of the Red Sox, Celtics and Patriots; Celtics coach Brad…
What would you expect from a show titled Calculus: The Musical ? For the 150 in attendance on February 26, 2014, at Roanoke College the correct answer was “fun!” An irresistible charm emerges from the show’s quirky blend of mathematical puns, fractured history, and just enough calculus to keep it real. But the heart of…
Fans of The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy know that 42 is “The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” although, as it turns out, we don’t actually know what that question is. Mathematicians may have found part of the question. Think about packing tennis balls (don’t panic – there’s a…
