Earlier today, I was talking with someone who brought up “eigenvalues.” I answered their questions; however, I realized that I had no clue where the word comes from or what it really insinuates. In fact, there are many math terms that I haven’t the slightest clue where they originated. Immediately I began a Google search for history of math terms. I found a website by Jeff Miller with a rather extensive listing of terms.
Let me know what you find!
Have you ever had a need for a LaTeX editor but you are not near a computer that has it installed? Have you ever wished that you could just edit documents in your browser (perhaps because you just got a shiny new Chromebook)? Well, the following is an attempt to do just that: http://docs.latexlab.org.
It works with your Google drive account, and so far I have seen it work quite well for relatively uncomplicated documents.
Sunny San Diego
How do you choose which lectures to attend at large conferences? I was thinking of the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) in January when I asked this question. There are several answers. AMS has even developed a scheduling tool to help you get organized once you find your own answer to this question.
My experience with Mathematics conferences has been attending sectional MAA meetings where there may only be three or four lectures in a day. So I may look back at the lectures I most enjoyed at those MAA meetings and find lectures with similar themes, subjects, etc… in the JMM program. One may choose a few favorite subjects like Algebra, Number Theory, or History of Mathematics, and then attend special sessions on those subjects. For example, I found an AMS special session on the History of Mathematics for Wednesday, January 9, at 8 am. However, I also found an MAA contributed paper session on Research in Number Theory for the same day and time. One may also look for lectures given by prominent or well-known mathematicians.
“When 7,000 Mathematicians Come to Boston” contains some advice on how to get the most out of a large conference, from the perspective of someone who attended the JMM in 2012. The take-aways from this paper were to sit up front and ask good questions. Composing some questions in advance will help. In addition to using the scheduling tool above, I’ll be attending the Reception for Graduate Students and First Time Participants, Wednesday, 5:30 – 6:30, to help guide myself through the JMM. Given the above answers and resources, how will you choose which lectures to attend at the JMM?
Paul Halmos (1916-2006) was an American mathematician born in Hungary. He worked in probability there, statistics, operator theory, ergodic theory, and functional analysis. He received the AMS Steele Prize for exposition. Three of his books include How to Read Mathematics, How to Write Mathematics, and How to Speak Mathematics.
Halmos enjoyed taking photos of mathematicians everywhere he traveled. In 2011, the Archives of American Mathematics digitized some of his collection. More information about this project can be found at http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/46/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=3801. You can also view an index of photos at http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/46/?pa=content&sa=viewDocument&nodeId=3887.
I am very thankful to this wonderful collection of photos of a multitude of mathematicians. Do you have a favorite photograph from this collection or other collections?
On November 28, @MathUpdate tweeted a link to a Quora topic titled What do grad students in math do all day?
Khalid Kalbat suggested a Big Bang Theory segment as an explanation.
