Math

Mathematics Colloquium, 2007-2008

The mathematics colloquia is a series of talks by the Willamette University Math Department and visiting speakers. These talks are aimed at faculty and undergraduate math students and will introduce the audience to fun, interesting applications of undergraduate mathematics, as well as more advanced topics in mathematics research. Colloquium talks will be held in Collins room 204, on Thursdays at 4:10pm unless stated otherwise. Refreshments will be provided. We hope you can join us! If you would like more information, please contact Prof. Erin McNicholas.

Thursday, April 24th, 4:10pm

Collins Room 204

Tatiana Mac, Willamette University

Tangles 

Abstract:

Previous Abstracts

Upcoming and Previous Spring Talks

Thursday, January 24th, 4:00pm: Prof. Holly Swisher, Oregon State University
Monstrous Moonshine Meets Rogers-Ramanujan Functions

Thursday, February 21st, 4:00pm: Prof. Stephanie Salomone, University of Portland
Analyzing a Multi-Scale Symphony

Thursday, February 28th, 4:00pm: Prof. Ellen Gethner
An Adventurer's Guide To The Treasure Hunt For High Chromatic Thickness-Two Graphs

Thursday, March 6th, 4:10pm: Alex Jorda, University of Oregon
An Introduction to the Riemann Zeta Function

Tuesday, March 11th, 4:10pm: Cam McLeman, University of Arizona
Generating Functions and some Crazy Dice

Thursday, March 20th, 4:10pm: Prof. Meike Niederhausen, University of Portland
How does a Mathematician get a Nobel Prize? or An Introduction to Mathematical Finance and Option Pricing

Tuesday, April 1st, 4:10pm: Prof. Tim Chartier, 2008 Sloan Fellow
Improving on your Mistakes: solving linear systems iteratively

Wednesday, April 9th, 4:10pm: Prof. Shereen Khoja, Pacific University
Part-of-Speech Tagging of the Arabic Language

Wednesday, April 10th, 4:10pm: Andrea Walker and Kyle Evans-Lee
Parrondo's Paradox Using Markov Chains

Thursday, April 17th, 11:40am, Collins 408: Prof. Eugene Luks, University of Oregon
The 15 Puzzle, 15000-Page Proofs, and Parallel Computation

Thursday, April 24th, 4:10pm: Tatiana Mac
Tangles

Fall Talks

Tuesday, September 18th, 4:00pm: Prof. Inga Johnaon, Willamette University
Planting Trees

Thursday, October 4th, 4:00pm: Prof. Josh Laison, Willamette University
Count on the Platonic Solids

Wednesday, October 10th, 4:00pm: Prof. Liz Stanhope, Lewis & Clark College
Doughnuts sound good to me!

Tuesday, October 16th, 4:00pm: Prof. Gary Gislason, Willamette University
Some Properties of the Sum and Product of Two Uniformly Distributed Random Variables

Thursday, October 25th, 4:00pm: Prof. Peter Otto, Willamette University
Is the Sacrifice Bunt a Good Baseball Strategy?

Thursday, November 1st, 4:00pm: Prof. Jessica Sklar, Pacific Lutheran University
Defeating the Robot and Unlocking Doors: Mathematical Solutions to Computer Game Puzzles

Tuesday, November 6th, 3:00pm Hatfield Room: Margaret Wertheim, The Institute for Figuring
Math and Art: The Reef Project

Thursday, November 15th, 4:00pm: Prof. Richard Iltis, Willamette University
An Historical View of Models for Planetary Motion

Tuesday, December 4th, 4:00pm: Prof. Erin McNicholas, Willamette University
The Rubik's Cube and Other Permutation Puzzles

Rating System:

• Rated G: No mathematical background required
• Rated PG: A little undergraduate mathematics assumed (some topics from 100 & 200 level courses)
• Rated PG13: A substantial amount of undergraduate mathematics assumed (some topics from 300 & 400 level courses)
• Rated R: Some graduate mathematics assumed
• Rated X: A talk only the speaker understands
• Rated XX: A talk even the speaker fails to understand