Archive for 2019
Obituary of Richard Allen Askey
Most of you have probably not heard of Professor Richard Askey, Professor at Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, who passed away this fall. But every student who has passed through the MCS Department knows the bronze bust of Srinivasa Ramanujan sculpted by Paul Granlund that proudly adorns our lobby. Richard Askey was the driving […]
December Problems of the Month
Congratulations to November’s solvers: Filip Belik, Mike Hvidsten, and Ha Le. November’s problems seems to have been particularly challenging! On to December: Problem #1 is a little arithmetic curiosity: The four-digit numbers 3025 and 2025 have an unusual property: (30+25)^2 = 3025 and (20+25)^2 = 2025. That is, if you put a plus sign in […]
Gusties contested in the 2019 ACM ICPC
Two gusties programming teams consisting of Thomas Hugart, Lam Nguyen, Ha Le, Filip Belik, Paul Kelley, and Caden Gunnarson participated in the 2019 regional ACM ICPC <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest> at Carleton College this past weekend. Each team solved three problems. The final scores can be viewed at https://ncna19.kattis.com/standings. Please congratulate them for a job well done!
Seminar on 11/11 – “What is a continuum, and why can’t I draw one?”
Dr. Jeff Ford will be giving the MCS department seminar. The title of his talk is “What is a continuum, and why can’t I draw one?” The talk will be in Olin 321 at 3:30 pm and refreshments (yum yum) will be at 3:15 pm.
LoFaro Receives Faculty Service Award
Congratulations to MCS department faculty member Dr. Tom LoFaro. Dr. LoFaro is the recipient of the 2019 Faculty Service Award, This award is the College’s highest recognition for distinguished service activities across campus. Tom carries on the tradition of Service Award winners from the Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics department. Previous winners from the […]
MCS Seminar and Math Grad School Presentation on Monday 10/28
On Monday, 10/28, Professor Richard McGehee from the University of Minnesota will be giving a seminar talk entitled “Earth’s Heat Imbalance,” on math modeling for climate change. An abstract for the talk can be found at the end of this post. The talk will start at 3:30 pm in Olin 321 with refreshments beginning at […]
October Problems of the Month
Congratulations to September’s supremely successful solvers: Filip Belik, Luke Haddorff, Tom LoFaro, James Wittrig, and Katherine Williams. October’s Problem #1 is just a game of Xs and Os: Imagine that the following list of three 7-letter words is made from tiles with X on one side, and O on the other side: OOOXXXX XXOXOOX […]
Pizza and Problem Solving Returns!
Pizza and Problem Solving will resume on Friday September 27. Come and help solve interesting, challenging, and just plain fun math problems and puzzles. Sometimes we even play games with some math content. You don’t need to have any particular background in math to join, i.e. you do not need to be a math major. We have many problems/puzzles […]
MCS Seminar on Monday 9/30 at 3:30 pm
Dr. Adam Loy from Carleton College will be giving a seminar talk entitled, “Can’t a computer do that? Exploring automatic evaluation of statistical graphics.” The talk will start at 3:30 pm in Olin 321 with refreshments beginning at 3:15 pm. The department looks forward to seeing you there!
MCS Summer Research: Offensive Performance in Baseball
Offensive performance in baseball depends on a number of correlated factors: the pitches the batter faces, the batter’s choice to swing, and the batter’s hitting ability. The choices of whether or not to swing, which can be describe as plate discipline, has traditionally been summarized as the proportion of pitches inside and outside of the […]