Undergraduate Colloquium Spring 2009

April 9, 2009

Games Night

Dr. Frank Bauerle, Lecturer, UCSC Mathematics Department 

In order to start off the quarter with some fun, we will be hosting Games Night. This week, instead of focusing on a single game we will be playing variety of Games,exploring new and different strategies. A few examples of some we may choose from are: Settler's of Catan, Ricochet Robots, Quoridor, and Set.

April 16, 2009

Games Night

Dr. Frank Bauerle, Lecturer, UCSC Mathematics Department 

In order to start off the quarter with some fun, we will be hosting Games Night. This week, instead of focusing on a single game we will be playing variety of Games,exploring new and different strategies. A few examples of some we may choose from are: Settler's of Catan, Ricochet Robots, Quoridor, and Set.

April 23, 2009

Movie Night: "The Proof": A documentary about Andrew Wiles' work on Fermat's Last Theorem

Dr. Frank Bauerle, Lecturer, UCSC Mathematics Department 

For over 350 years, some of the greatest minds of science struggled to prove what was known as Fermat's Last Theorem - the idea that a certain simple equation had no solutions in positive integers. The theorem has gained notoriety in part because of the following published statement by Pierre de Fermat: "It is impossible for a cube to be the sum of two cubes, a fourth power to be the sum of two fourth powers, or in general for any number that is a power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain." Now hear from the man who spent many years of his life cracking the problem.

April 30, 2009

Don’t jump from the projective plane

Adam Chavin, Mathematics Undergraduate, UCSC 

I will give an introduction to the wonderful idea of projective planes. I will also speak on coordinatizing projective planes, and how this gives rise to the invention of ternary rings. Finally, I’ll throw in a few unsolved problems.

May 7, 2009

Games Night: The Game of Pigs - Cancelled

Dr. Frank Bauerle, Lecturer, UCSC Mathematics Department 

This week we will play and analyze "The game of pigs", a game that involves a combination of strategy and luck. This game is one in a class of games called jeopardy dice games. We will have fun playing it and then look at the mathematics of it. Bring your lucky dice ! Time permitting, we can also play some other related games.

May 17, 2009

Games Night: The Game of Pigs

Dr. Frank Bauerle, Lecturer, UCSC Mathematics Department 

This week we will play and analyze "The game of pigs", a game that involves a combination of strategy and luck. This game is one in a class of games called jeopardy dice games. We will have fun playing it and then look at the mathematics of it. Bring your lucky dice ! Time permitting, we can also play some other related games.

May 21, 2009

The Impossibilty of Doubling the Cube and Trisecting an Angle using Compass and Straightedge Construction

Carol Puklus, Mathematics Undergraduate, UCSC 

I will be discussing the impossibility of doubling the cube and trisecting an arbitrary angle with a compass and straightedge. After a brief intro to Euclid and Euclidean construction I will explore what we can construct given two constructible elements and a unit length. This will lead us to understanding how we can construct solutions to linear and quadratic equations as they are intersections of constructed lines and/or circles. We will see that the set of constructible numbers represents a field with the field of rationals as a susbfield. The impossible constructions arise when we are required to construct solutions to cubic equations that are irreducible in field of rationals. Both doubling the cube and trisecting an angle require solutions to irreducible cubic equations.

May 28, 2009

The Mathematics of Bubbles and Soap Films, a Hands On Look.

Tom Noddy and Tony Tromba