Month: October 2007

  • Euler, Dollond, and the Achromatic Telescope Controversy

    Erik Tou, Carthage College (and Gustavus alumnus) 11:30-12:20 on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 Olin Hall, Room 320 Lunch will be served Leonhard Euler was the most prolific mathematician of the 18th century. He wrote over 800 books and papers during his career, many of which were published long after his death. While much of Euler’s…

  • The Uncertainty Principle and Image Reconstruction

    Eric S. Weber, Iowa State University (and Gustavus alumnus) 3:30-4:20pm on Tuesday, October 30 Olin Hall, Room 320 The Uncertainty Principle is a well-known phenomenon from physics, placing a lower bound on the error present in simultaneous measurements of position and momentum of a particle. However, it actually is a mathematical phenomenon, and we will…

  • Wasp Sex: Using the Likelihood Ratio Test to Compare Models of Sex Determination in C. vestalis

    Aaron Rendahl, University of Minnesota School of Statistics 11:30-12:20 on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Olin Hall, Room 320 Lunch will be served The likelihood ratio test is an important statistical method for comparing two competing hypotheses. While it is the theoretical justification for many standard statistical tests, it can also be useful for problems where…

  • MCS, Physics Profs Get Robotics Grant

    Mike Hvidsten and Tom Huber from the MCS and Phsyics Departments just got a very nice grant from Sun Microsystems that will allow the two of them to modernize the Robotics Workshop course, which they will be team teaching in January of 2008. Sun is providing 11 SunSPOT development systems, valued at a total of…

  • Operations Research: Some Practical Examples

    Nathan Annis Thursday, October 11th, 3:30-4:20pm Olin Hall, Room 321 What is Operations Research? What does someone educated in this field actually do? Nathan Annis, a 2003 graduate of Gustavus, later earned a graduate degree in Operations Research and is now employed at Hormel Foods. He will present real-world examples applying the tools of optimization,…