Willamette University                                                                                                     Department of Mathematics
     
 

 Mathematics Colloquium, 2007-2008

 
     

Willamette Philosophy Colloquium                                                                                 Reed Mathematics Colloquium     

 

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 4pm unless stated otherwise.  Refreshments will be provided.  We hope you can join us!  If you would like more information, please contact Prof. Erin McNicholas.

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

 

 

        
 

 

Tuesday, April 1st, 4:10pm

Collins Room 204

Prof. Tim Chartier, Davidson College

Improving on your Mistakes: solving linear systems iteratively

Abstract:

Learning to solve a linear system (matrix system) Ax = b using Gaussian elimination is a part of many undergraduates' education.  Complex mathematical models common in modern science lead to linear systems containing millions or even billions of unknowns.  For such systems Gaussian elimination is crippled due to its inefficiency.  This talk will discuss how iterative methods attempt to solve Ax = b efficiently and quickly.  The first step in an iterative process is to guess at the solution. This guess does not need to be accurate. Then the method uses a series of iterations that generate a sequence of "guesses" that converge quickly to a true solution.  After establishing a framework for iterative methods, I will look closely at multigrid methods, which are designed to solve linear systems resulting from partial differential equations.

 

 Previous Abstracts

 

 

 

Dragonfly, by Prof. Junpei Sekino

 
         
 

 

 

  

 

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, 4:10pm:  Prof. Ellen Gethner 

An Adventurer's Guide To The Treasure Hunt For High Chromatic Thickness-Two Graphs

 

 

  • Thursday, March 6th, 4:10pm:  Alex Jordan 

An Introduction to the Riemann Zeta Function

 

 

  • Tuesday, March 11th, 4:10pm:  Cam McLeman 

Generating Functions and some Crazy Dice

 

  • Thursday, March 20th, 4:00pm:  Prof. Meike Niederhausen

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 Research Fellow

Improving on your Mistakes: solving linear systems iteratively

 

  • Wednesday, April 9th, 4:10pm:  Prof. Shereen Khoja 

TBA

 

  • Thursday, April 24th, 4:10pm:  Prof. Emmanuelle Salgues 

TBA

 

  

 

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

    For more information, see this site

     
  • 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