Weekly Schedule
Note: The schedule lists events and activities that are of
potential interest to all REU and REG-0 groups; individual research groups will
set their own schedule of meetings. More events will be added as the
information becomes available.
REU/REG Coffee/Cookie Hour:
Daily, 3 pm - 4 pm, in 321 Altgeld. Pick up cookies in the Math
Undergraduate Office, 313 Altgeld.
WEEK 8
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
- 10:30 am - 11:00 am, 159 Altgeld.
Final Presentations.
Click on link for detailed schedule.
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Paul Pollack,
Euclid was right!
An accessible (and entertaining) talk on the infinitude of primes.
About the speaker: Professor Pollack is an alumn of the 2002 UIUC REU
program; he received a PhD in 2007 from Dartmouth, and has since been at
Illinois as a postdoc.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
WEEK 7
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
WEEK 6
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
- 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 141 Altgeld.
Mini Course on Asymptotics
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Ken Stolarsky,
Discriminants, envelopes, inequalities, and thick parabolas
Abstract: Not everyone realizes that the process of finding the
discriminant of a polynomial is essentially the same as finding the
envelope of a family of curves. We use this process to produce a
previously ignored (???) object, the thick parabola, and to conjecture
what its properties are. This leads us into problems about inequalities,
and illustrates the process of going from data and computations (perhaps
computer generated) to conjectures and hopefully theorems.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
- 9:00 am - 11:00 am, Tour of the
CUBE
,
Professor George Francis
will lead a tour of CUBE,
is a room-sized virtual reality environment, located at the
Beckman Institute Illinois Simulator
Laboratory.
Directions:
Go south on Lincoln Ave and past Florida Ave.
Turn right (west) to Hazelwood Drive, about half a mile south of Florida.
Drive to the end and turn into the parking lot of the only building on
the south side of Hazelwood. (See this map, where
the location is marked "BIC", on the lower left corner.)
- 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 141 Altgeld.
Mini Course on Asymptotics
- The talk "Getting published in mathematics" has been postponed
till next week.
WEEK 5
Monday, July 13, 2009
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Scott Ahlgren,
The congruent number problem.
Abstract: This problem, which is at least 2000 years old, asks which
integers are the area of some right triangle with rational side
lengths. This simple question turns out to be related to one of the
most important problems in number theory, which is to determine when
the group of points on an elliptic curve has infinite order. This is
in turn related to the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer, one of
the seven $1,000,000 problems. I will sketch these connections with
explicit examples--no particular background is necessary.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
- 10:00 am: Tour of Wolfram Research. Wolfram headquarters at
the corner of Neil St. and Kirby St. in Champaign.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
WEEK 4
Monday, July 6, 2009
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Bruce Berndt,
Ramanujan's Lost Notebook.
Professor Berndt has been on the Illinois Faculty since 1967. He spent
much of his professional life unearthing and proving the thousands of
claims made in the notebooks of Srninivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), one the
greatest mathematicians of all times. The talk will focus on the "Lost
Notebook", which was discovered in 1976 and contains some of Ramanujan's
deepest work. For more on this topic see the article
"Raiders of the Lost Notebook: LAS mathematician tracks proof for legendary
numbers genius."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
A.J. Hildebrand, Introduction to Mathematical Literature.
WEEK 3
Monday, June 27, 2009
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Jeremy Rouse,
Primes dividing recurrent sequences.
About the speaker: Professor Rouse is an alumn of the 2002 UIUC REU
program; he received a PhD in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin, and
has since been at Illinois as a postdoc.
The above talk is accessible to a broad audience and requires no
numbertheoretic background.
Tuesday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
WEEK 2
Monday, June 22, 2009
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
Bruce Reznick,
An introduction to mathematical research.
About the speaker: Professor Reznick is an award-winning instructor
who pioneered a course "Introduction to mathematical research" and has
been teaching it on a regular basis for the past several years.
He has written an article based on this experience,
"One introduction to
mathematical research", published in Math Horizons.
He has also served on the Putnam Questions Committee, and his article "Some thoughts on
writing for the Putnam is worth reading for anyone interested
in a behind-the-scenes look at the Putnam.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
- 11:00 am - 11:30 am. Math Library tour/orientation.
Meet at library.
- 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 141 Altgeld.
A.J. Hildebrand, Mini Course on Asymptotics
An introduction to asymptotic analysis at the undergraduate level with
emphasis on applications to combinatorics, number theory, and
probability. The course will run twice weekly, Tuesdays/Thursdays at 2 pm,
through the end of July. Click on the above link for a more detailed
description.
Thursday, 6/25, 2009
WEEK 1
Monday, June 15, 2009
- 1 pm - ??, Room 159
Altgeld Hall:
Orientation.
Take care of forms and paperwork, IDs, computer accounts, etc.
Room 159 is located in the basement on the south side of the building;
see
here for a floor plan.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
-
9:00 am - 11:00 am, 159 Altgeld.
Rick Gorvett, Probability theory and statistics refresher
- 1:30 pm,
Levis Faculty Center (Visitor Center).
Campus Tour. Levis Center is located a few blocks east of
Altgeld Hall on Illinois Street. Click on the above link for a map.
- 3:00 pm, 130 Altgeld, Computer Lab Orientation.
Tony Mullen, one of our system administrators, will provide a brief
introduction to our computing facilities. Those planning to use their
math computer account should attend this meeting.
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
A.J. Hildebrand, Number Theory and Computing at Illinois.
A nontechnical talk on the rich history of computing at Illinois and
its application to number-theoretic problems.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
-
9:00 am - 11:00 am, 159 Altgeld.
Rick Gorvett, Markov Chains and Markov Processes
-
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm, 159 Altgeld.
Rick Gorvett, Introduction to basic concepts in insurance, actuarial
science and finance.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
-
9:00 am - 11:00 am, 159 Altgeld.
Rick Gorvett, Poisson Processes
-
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm, 159 Altgeld (NOTE TIME CHANGE).
Rick Gorvett, Brownian Motion
- 4:00 pm, 245 Altgeld.
A.J. Hildebrand,
Introduction to TeX/LaTeX.
