{"id":24696,"date":"2014-04-11T13:31:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T18:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/?p=24696"},"modified":"2014-06-17T16:22:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:22:59","slug":"mathematics-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2014\/04\/11\/mathematics-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Mathematics Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-24697\" style=\"line-height: 24px;font-size: 16px\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/files\/2014\/04\/Pegasus-Bright-Gold-150x150.png\" alt=\"Pegasus-Bright-Gold-150x150\" width=\"90\" height=\"90\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Like many universities, the University of Central Florida (UCF) has had many guest speakers this semester. It is quite interesting to hear the thoughts of folks from other universities regarding mathematics and its role.\u00a0Two of my favorite talks recently have been by Dr. John dePillis and\u00a0Krishnaswami Alladi.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mathematical Conversation Starters: <a href=\"http:\/\/math.ucr.edu\/~jdp\/\" target=\"_blank\">John dePillis<\/a> &#8211; University of California, Riverside<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr. dePillis&#8217; talk was aimed at both mathematicians and non-mathematicians. (Even some of my calculus students were in attendance and found it quite enjoyable.) He discussed many different topics including the scientific method, the birthday problem, Monty Hall problem, Sherlock Holmes, algebra of the mind, critical thinking, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I think the talk&#8217;s message that most impacted my students is the algebra of the mind. Students many times think of algebra as something that occurs in mathematics and does not relate to how they think during their daily lives. dePillis used the distributive law to show this is not the case. He defined the following events:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>R: I will go to a restaurant<\/li>\n<li>S: I will order salmon<\/li>\n<li>T: I will order tuna<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then he said he will go to the restaurant and order salmon or tuna, explaining that it is the same as I will go to a restaurant and order salmon or I will go to a restaurant and order tuna. Everyone in the room could easily understand this thought process. Then he used mathematics and the distributive law. He gave <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s0.wp.com\/latex.php?latex=+R+%5Ctimes+%28S+%2B+T%29+%3D+R+%5Ctimes+S+%2B+R+%5Ctimes+T+.&#038;bg=ffffff&#038;fg=000&#038;s=0&#038;c=20201002\" alt=\" R &#92;times (S + T) = R &#92;times S + R &#92;times T .\" class=\"latex\" \/> Then he explained that the mathematical equation was representing the exact thought process you were just having. Unfortunately, oftentimes this lesson is lost on students.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot wait to check out dePillis&#8217; books\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/777-Mathematical-Conversation-Starters-Spectrum\/dp\/0883855402\" target=\"_blank\"><em>777 Mathematical Conversation Starters<\/em><\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.maa.org\/publications\/ebooks\/illustrated-special-relativity-through-its-paradoxes\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Illustrated Special Relativity Through Its Paradoxes<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Erd\u0151s &#8211; one of the most influential mathematicians of our times:\u00a0Krishnaswami Alladi &#8211; University of Florida<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-24700\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/files\/2014\/04\/alladi.jpg\" alt=\"alladi\" width=\"147\" height=\"187\" \/><\/strong>This talk was sponsored by the <a href=\"http:\/\/mathatucf.com\" target=\"_blank\">UCF Math Club<\/a>\u00a0and was given at a level understandable to undergraduate mathematics (or related fields) majors. Dr. Alladi gave some general information about Erd\u0151s who, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting mathematicians of all time.<\/p>\n<p>Alladi told of a hyperbole that I had never heard in which Erd\u0151s was on a train and by the end of the train ride, he had jointly authored a paper with the railway collector. Although this story, as Alladi pointed out, is likely untrue, it serves to demonstrate Erd\u0151s&#8217; willingness to collaborate with multitudes of people.<\/p>\n<p>I particularly enjoyed listening to Alladi&#8217;s story of how he met Erd\u0151s. Alladi had done some work on a problem and he was not sure of its important or if it was already known. He sent his work to Erd\u0151s and quickly got a response asking if they could meet at a conference in India. unfortunately, Alladi was not able to attend, but his father was attending the conference and went in his place. Erd\u0151s enjoyed the work so much he replanned his next trip so that he could travel to where Alladi lived to speak with him in person. This began his collaboration with Erd\u0151s.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite quotes from the talk came from Alladi himself,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you are comfortable with the convergence and divergence of a sequence, you have developed into a more mature man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Have you had any really interesting speakers come to your university? What did they speak about and why did you enjoy it?<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Like many universities, the University of Central Florida (UCF) has had many guest speakers this semester. It is quite interesting to hear the thoughts of folks from other universities regarding mathematics and its role.\u00a0Two of my favorite talks recently have &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2014\/04\/11\/mathematics-talks\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" data-url=https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/2014\/04\/11\/mathematics-talks\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,12,14,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-math","category-math-in-pop-culture","category-mathematics-in-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3gbww-6qk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24696"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24884,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24696\/revisions\/24884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/mathgradblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}