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…
First-year physics majors Tyler Strouth, Brandon Petersen, and Jacob Barfield (L to R in picture above) enthusiastically participated in the after-school enrichment program at West Salem Elementary School. The trio led an interactive session to 3-5th graders primarily pertaining to fluid properties, including a classic demonstration of laminar flow involving oil and food coloring. By all accounts,…
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…
Update: The Roanoke Valley Governor’s School student, Alexus McBride, who was assisted back in February by RC students Amanda Wright, Lizzi Ciskowski, Sara Dvorak and Thomas Lux and RC professor Rich Grant, tied for first place in her regional science fair. Alexus will be moving on to the Virginia statewide science fair competition later this…
Whether you write the date for March 14 as 3/14 or 3.14, you probably understand why the day is called “Pi Day.” Is it a good sign for mathematicians that Pi Day seems to have made into the mainstream of our culture? It may not be clear whether they’re laughing with us or at us,…
