Some Random Tidbits
Name: Tom Cooney
Office:
454, Plaza de la Ciencias 3, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Email:
tomcooney1@gmail.com
I graduated with a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois in August 2010. I currently hold a postdoctoral position at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Before coming to Illinois, I was at University College Cork, National University of Ireland, Cork, where I earned a first class honours degree in English and Mathematics.
My (non-mathematical) interests include reading books and watching movies. When in Ireland, my interests include spending time with my niece Isabel and nephew David.
Some Interesting Links
David Blecher's Notes on Noncommutative Functional Analysis for Undergraduates
What are operator spaces? - An online dictionary
PhD comics - a description of graduate student life in comic form
XKCD - a comic that sometimes contains a surprisingly large amount of mathematics
Tired of taking mathematics courses in the usual large lecture format? How about trying
the Merit Program or Calculus and Mathematica?
Monty Hall Problem Story from The New York Times - This includes an online Monty Hall game you can play yourself
All possible regular (semiregular, demiregular) tessellations - very pretty!
Penrose tiling - tiles the plane, never repeats!
What is a tessellation?
Totally Tessellated
The Euclidean Toolbox An online tool to help you with
compass and straightedge constructions. If you are in one of the University's
computer labs, it should have at least one of the following:
(The Geometer's) Sketchpad, Dr Geo. All very interesting and all with the
potential to be very helpful.
Wikipedia
A good source for interesting and often also true mathematical tidbits. Try
searching for biographies of the mathematicians listed below.
Euclid, Erastothenes, Pythagoras, Heron, Brahmagupta, Descartes, Newton,
Euler
Lots of mathematical info from
Wolfram Research ,
one of the world leaders in mathematical computer software,
based right here in Urbana-Champaign.
Euclid's Elements: The book(s) that helped start it all.
The MacTutor
History of Mathematics archive : Mathematicians' biographies and more!
The Most Pleasing
Rectangle Web Poll Poke around the rest of Jim Loy's webpage
for some more interesting stuff.
Demetri Martin (a stand-up comedian) corrects the
Rock, Paper, Scissors game (among other things).
The Geometric Meaning of the Geometric Mean Plenty of pictures
showing the geometric mean in action.
When would you use the Geometric Mean? Average rate of return on
investments, averages of things that fluctuate (the stock market for
example), center frequencies, averages of things that you are multiplying
by.
Some examples of the golden ratio in nature
The numbers that appear (the Fibonacci numbers) are VERY closely related to the golden ratio. For example, 55/34 and 89/55 (and so on for the other numbers that appear on this webpage) are very close to the golden ratio.
