# Math Club

The Math Club is an officially recognized organization of undergraduate students who promote and engage in activities of mathematical interest. Our faculty advisors are Professor Shea Vela-Vick and Professor Rui Han. If you are interested in the math club activities, please contact the current president Lillian Powell at lpowe22 at lsu dot edu or Dr. Han at rhan at lsu dot edu

• President: Lillian Powell
• Vice-President: Raenessa Walker
• Secretary: Houston Smith
• Treasurer: Madeleine Coward
• Editor: Cheyenne Parker

There are no dues, and attendance at meetings is open to current and prospective LSU students in any field. Students in computer science, physics, and other sciences regularly attend, and other majors are welcome. Students interested in the Math Club might also be interested in the Actuarial Student Association.

Additional information can be found on the Facebook math group and on TigerLink math club page.

## Current Events!

Next meeting (with pizza) Nov 21, 2022, Monday in the Lockett 3rd Floor Lounge at 4:30 PM, guest speakers from SIAM

.

## Meetings

Regular Math Club activities take place on Mondays at 5:00pm in the Keisler Lounge on the 3rd floor of Lockett Hall. Meetings usually consist of refreshments (pizza, drinks, and often cake), a mathematical talk by an invited speaker, from LSU or elsewhere, a math movie, a math contest, or other math activities. Math club members help out with the High School Mathematics Contest, and they are also involved in the team competition at the annual meeting of the Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America. Questions or comments about this page should be sent to Professor Shea Vela-Vick or Profesor Rui Han.

## Past Math Club and related events

### Fall 2018

• September 10, 2018 Professor Mahlburg: The Putnam competition
• September 17, 2018 Speakers Matthew Bertucci and Irfan Alam talking about summer math experiences.
• September 24, 2018 Math problem solving and preparing for the Math GRE.
• October 1, 2018 Professor Vela-Vick: The Gauss-Bonnet Theorem
• October 8, 2018 No meeting; see next event
• Friday, October 12, 2018, 4 PM, BEC 2904 LSU Finance graduate program tour (RSVP with President Brooke Mendoza)
• October 15, 2018 Math movie night: X+Y (A Brilliant Young Mind)
• October 22, 2018 Undergraduate speaker Aaron Cao: TBA
• October 29, 2018 Professor Cochran: consulting work with gambling/probability; LAMS collegiate competition
• November 5, 2018 Probability game night: poker (free to play)

### Spring 2016

• Wednesday, January, 20 2016, 4:30 PM, Lockett 284. (First meeting for the semester) "Matroids and You"

### Fall 2015

• Wednesday, September 2, 2015, 4:30 PM, Lockett 284. (First meeting for the semester)
• Wednesday, Sept 9, 2015, 4:00 PM, Lockett 284. Speaker: Jesse Levitt, title: An introduction to Coalgebras.
• Wednesday, Sept 16, 2015, 4:00 PM, Lockett 284. Speaker: Noah Wilson, title: The Realizability of Graphs in Higher Dimensions
• Wednesday, November 4, 2015, 4:00 PM, Lockett 284: Speaker: Sean Taylor, title: Sheaves of Manifolds. Abstract: "In the mid 20th century, Grothendieck had the insight that geometry is best described as a topological space with extra structure - most commonly which functions live on the space. This led Serre and Grothendieck to use Leray's theory of sheaves on topological spaces to greatly abstract and generalize earlier work in algebraic geometry. Today, sheaves have found use in any setting where geometry and topology are used. They are a high-powered tool with which every mathematician should at least have some familiarity. In this talk, we will explore the basics of what a sheaf on a topological space is and see some examples of them and their uses."

### Spring 2015

• Tuesday, February 3, 2015, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections
• Tuesday, February 10, 2015, 4:00 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321.
Sean Taylor: "Complex Affine Varieties"

### Fall 2014

• Tuesday, September 16, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections
• Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321.
• Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321.
• Tuesday, October 28, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321.
Professor Jerome Hoffman: "The projective plane and elliptic curves"
• Tuesday, November 11, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321.
Richard Frnka: "Farey Sequences and Ford Circles"
• Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321

### Fall 2012

• Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections
• Tuesday, October 2, 2012, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Set Tournament, T-shirt Design
• Tuesday, October 16, 2012, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Susan Abernathy: Knot Theory
• Tuesday, October 30, 2012, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Movie Night
• Tuesday, November 13, 2012, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Stephen Shipman: Waves and Lattices

### Fall 2011

Not everything in the schedule below is technically a function of the LSU Math Club. Math Club events have the date listed in color; other events that are likely to be of interest to members are also listed from time to time with the date in black.

• Tuesday, September 6, 2011, 5:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections

• Tuesday, September 27, 2011, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Paul Sinz: Differentiability of Continuous Functions, Introduction to Set.
• Tuesday, October 18, 2011, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Set Tournament
• Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Jesse Taylor: Matroid Theory.
• Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Movie Night.

### Fall 2010

• Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. NOVA: The Genius of Archimedes [Movie]
• Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Discuss REU's, Scholarships
• Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Trevor McGuire: Random Fibonacci Sequences
• Wednesday, October 06, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Set Tournament
• Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Fermat's Last Tango [Movie].
• Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 4:45 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections

### Spring 2010

• Thursday, April 22, 2010, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Distribute Math Club T-shirts, plan for fall.

• Thursday, April 15, 2010, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Vote to add a new officer position of liaison to the Math Club Constitution.

• Sunday, March 14, 2010, 1:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Pi Day.

• Thursday, February 4, 2010, 5:00 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Leah Childers. We will look at an interesting group associated to surfaces called the mapping class group. Mapping class groups arise in the study of many areas of mathematics including: geometric group theory, low dimensional topology and algebraic geometry. We will explore basic elements of this group as well as some of the relations. No background in topology will be assumed.

### Fall 2009

• Thursday, November 19, 2009, 6:00 PM, Design Building 103. MOVIE: Fermat's Room, organized in collaboration with the Spanish Club at LSU. "We will watch the movie Fermat's Room at 103 Design Bldg at 6:01pm on 11/19/2009. Entertainment will happen. Approximately 90 minutes later, the movie will end and we will all return to our normal lives as though nothing had happened, yet forever remembering the magic that happened on that fateful November night.."

• Monday, November 16, 2009, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Jesse Taylor, graduate mathematics student at LSU, will be discussing the definition of a group and Group Theory. He'll be giving a few basic definitions and defining a few key concepts related to Group and Graph Theory. There will be pizza.

• Monday, November 9, 2009, 4:30 PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Regular meeting with pizza.

• Monday, October 19, 2009, 4:30PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Dr. Helena Verrill: Introduction to Number Theory, Clueless about what Number Theory is and how it relates to your everyday life? Come and find out!

• Thursday, October 22, 2009, 12:40, Lockett B6, Light lunch in Keisler Lounge, 12:00. Student Colloquium speaker Virginia Naibo: Cool Applications of Matrix Theory.

• Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 3:40, Lockett 285, Refreshments in Keisler Lounge, 3:00. Student Colloquium speaker Virginia Naibo: Decay Properties of Wave Functions Associated to Atomic Particles.

• Monday, October 5, 2009, 4:30PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Math activities, discussion of upcoming movie, and pizza.

• Monday, September 28, 2009, 4:30PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Putnam problems.

• Monday, September 21, 2009, 4:30PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Advice on graduate school from Prof. Richardson.

• Monday, September 14, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Elections! Come eat free pizza, vote for your new officers, and play some fun math games. If you are interested in running for office, contact Josh Moulton.

• Tuesday, September 8, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Movie Night! NOVA: Fractals - Hunting the Hidden Dimension. Come eat free pizza and enjoy a movie about mysteriously beautiful fractals that are shaking and deepening our understanding of nature.

• Monday, August 31, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Welcome back! Come eat pizza and enjoy catching up with your math peers. Susan Abernathy will talk about knot theory. Abstract: Knot theory connects to a wide variety of areas in mathematics. In this talk, we will review some basics of knots and introduce some of the diverse techniques used to differentiate knots, including certain knot invariants and Morse theory.

### Spring 2009

• Friday, April 24, 2009, 3:30PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Movie Night: Come and watch a movie with us. A real thrill before dead week. We will vote for either "Fermat's Room" or a BBC documentary. Pizza and popcorn will be served.

• Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 2:00PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Guest Math Club speaker Victor Moll from Tulane (note the special day). Title: What do I learn if I decide to compute integrals? Abstract: The study of the evaluation of definite integrals is full of surprises. This talk will present some of them in relation to Dynamical Systems, Number Theory, and Combinatorics. The first example deals with the rational integral $N_{0,4}(a;m) := \int_0^∞ \frac{dx}{(x^4+2ax^2+1)^{m+1}}.$ The numbers $d_l(m) := 2^{−2m} \sum_{k=l}^m 2^k {2m-2k \choose m-k} {m+k \choose k} {k \choose l}$ play an important role in its evaluation.

The sequence $\{d_l(m) : 0 ≤ l ≤ m \}$ has many intriguing properties, some of which remain to be decided. (=Looking for collaborators).

Here is a nice non-linear dynamical system $\begin{split} a &\mapsto \frac{ab+5a+5b+9}{(a+b+2)^{4/3}}\\ b &\mapsto \frac{a+b+6}{(a+b+2)^{2/3}}\\ \end{split}$ Where do these formulas come from? Integrals, of course.

• Friday, March 27, 2009, 2:00PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Math 4???: Don't know which 4000 level math course you want to take? Or do you want to find out more about the courses offered? We will have professors who have taught the courses come talk to us about them!

• Thursday, March 19, 2009, 12:00PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Mark Sepanski, Baylor University Mathematics, Why Torture Us with Proofs? Abstract: In this discussion, we'll look at a number of obviously true patterns and theorems. Unfortunately, some of these obvious results turn out to be quite false! As a result, we'll see why mathematicians blab so incessantly about proofs.

• Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 3:40PM, Lockett 285. Mark Sepanski, Baylor University Mathematics, Just Can't Stop Counting. Abstract: We all begin our mathematical life by studying the integers. And while the integers are pretty cool, you can only multiply so many seven digit numbers before you call it quits and move on to the rational numbers. After that, you hit the real numbers and eventually move on to the complex numbers. But what comes next--if anything? In this talk we'll give one version of the answer to this question.

• Friday, March 13, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. π Day's Eve celebration. We will construct π, learn about its history, and eat pizza and pies.

• Friday, March 6, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Regular Math Club meeting with food and math. Check Facebook for more information.

• Friday, February 27, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Math movie. Infinite Secrets: The Genius of Archimedes

• Friday, February 20, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. No official meeting scheduled, but check Facebook for possible spontaneous activities.

• Friday, February 13, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. FUN MATH NIGHT! Join your math friends Friday afternoon in the lounge for pizza and drinks, when we’ll break into groups and try to crack some stimulating math problems.

• Friday, February 6, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. GAME NIGHT !!! We will play games, such as Go, Backgammon, and Sets, as well as your favorite game---you're welcome to bring your own. It will be a fun time for mingling and getting to know other math majors. Check out the Facebook event and math group.

• Friday, January 30, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. A math movie: Music of the Primes: From Riemann to Ramanujan "With the advent of Bernhard Riemann's zeta-hypothesis, the study of prime numbers took on astonishing new dimensions--including a way to predict the appearance of primes. ... Using state-of-the-art 3-D animation, the film guides viewers through the zero-punctuated pattern [of the zeta-function] that Riemann unveiled. It also describes the friendship between G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan and the difficulties both men experienced as they confronted problems in number theory." (from the DVD jacket)

• Friday, January 23, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. We will begin by discussing teachNOLA, a selective Teaching Fellows program that recruits and trains committed individuals to teach in New Orleans public schools, using handouts by Ashley Angelico. You may download a PDF of these materials. Then Jessica Gaboury, a recent graduate of LSU, will speak about the Alternative Certification Program, in which teachers obtain certification on the job, and the pay is relatively good. A person from the LSU Cain Center for Scientific, Technological, Engineering, and Mathematical Literacy will also be there to inform students of their options for a teaching career.

• Thursday, January 22, 2009, 3:40PM, 285 Lockett. Thomas Struppeck from the Casualty Actuarial Society will present a Student Colloquium entitled The Mathematics of the Sub-Prime Meltdown. Note the special day, location and time.

• Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 3:40PM, 285 Lockett. There will be a Student Colloquium entitled Career Opportunities for Mathematicians in Insurance and Finance. The featured speaker will be Thomas Struppeck from the Casualty Actuarial Society. Note the special day, location and time.

• Friday, January 16, 2009, 3:40PM, Keisler Lounge Lockett 321. Professor Stephen Shipman, the faculty advisor for the Math Club, will introduce the new semester of Math Club activities and talk about the discrete dynamical systems, chaos, and a connection to number theory. The connection is the Möbius transform. We begin with the sequence 1, 2, 6, 12, 30, 54, 126, 240, 504, 990, ... and find out how it is generated and what it means in terms of a simple discrete dynamical system on the unit circle.

### Fall 2008

• Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 3:40PM, 232 Lockett. There was a presentation about Research Experience for Undergraduates (REUs) which is a federal program that pays undergraduates to do research over the summer. Speakers included students who worked on REUs. They discussed the application process in detail. The featured speaker was Professor Jerome Hoffman, who is one of the organizers of the REU at LSU. This event was originally scheduled for 11/13 but was moved to accommodate more students. Refreshments are planned.

• Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 1:00PM, Keisler Lounge. The Mathematics Consultation Clinic had a poster session and oral presentations about this semester's Math 4020 Capstone Course projects. The posters were on display starting at 1:00PM and the oral presentations started at 1:45PM. More information about the Capstone Course. Everyone was invited and the refreshments were great.

• Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 3:40PM, 232 Lockett. A number of LSU graduate faculty members gave informal presentations about applying to grad school in math and related areas. Professor Leonard Richardson, Herbert Huey McElveen Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Mathematics at LSU, gave an informal presentation about applying to graduate school in mathematics, and Professor Brian Marx talked about graduate study in experimental statistics.

• Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 6:30PM, 220 Stubbs. Teach for America held an information session. Food was provided. For more information, check http://www.teachforamerica.org.

• Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 3:40PM, 232 Lockett. Professor George Cochran, Associate Chair for Instruction in the LSU Department of Mathematics, presented a lecture entitled Gambling. Here is the abstract: Probability theorems are the foundation of an entire industry, which has a reliable and predictable income stream due to the magic of the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem. This talk was accessible to undergrads. Note the special day, location and time.

• Thursday, October 30, 2008, 1:40PM, 129 Allen. Professor Mihai Putinar, who is the Undergraduate Vice-Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, gave a fun and informative talk entitled "Polynomial Optimization" that was very appropriate for undergrads and beginning grad students. (Abstract: A classical Positivstellensatz and a linearized form of it have made a lasting imprint in the field of polynomial optimization. A history of polynomial positivity, starting with Hilbert’s 17th problem and up to current research, will constitute the main body of the talk.) Professor Putinar is an internationally recognized scholar in operator theory and analytic geometry whose numerous awards and honors include an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and the Simion Stoilow Prize of the Romanian Academy. All undergrads and grad students were invited. Refreshments were provided. Note the special day, time, and location. Picture 1 from this meeting. Picture 2 from this meeting.

### Spring 2008

• Thursday, May 1, 2008, 9:00-11:00AM, 203 Prescott. The Mathematics Consultation Clinic presented a poster session on this semester's Math 4020 capstone projects. The projects involved joint work with the William Olefins Company and the Kinesiology and Civil and Environmental Engineering Departments at LSU. Light refreshments were provided.

• Wednesday-Friday, April 23-25, 2008, 3:40PM. The 2008 Porcelli lectures were given this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 3:40pm in the new part of the Howe-Russell geology building (E130 on Wednesday and Thursday, E134 on Friday). Refreshments were available starting at 3pm on each lecture day. The Porcelli speaker is Don Zagier, professor at the College de France and also co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Germany. Professor Zagier has won the Carus Prize (1984), the Cole Prize (1987), the Elie Cartan Prize (1996), The Chauvenet Prize (2000), and the von Staudt Prize (2001). Zagier is known for his interesting and entertaining lectures. His talks were accessible to advanced undergraduates. Poster for Zagier talks. Note the special days, locations and times.

• Tuesday, April 22, 2008, 3:40PM, 239 Lockett. Professor Tara Brendle from the LSU math department presented a lecture entitled "Braids and Cryptography". Professor Brendle is an expert on topology, which is the mathematical study of properties of seemingly different objects that are really the same, in a generalized sense. For example, a coffee cup and a donut are the same in a topological sense, because they both have one hole. Topology is one of the principal areas of pure mathematics, and it has also been used in physics and other applications. This talk was accessible to undergrads. (Abstract: In the late 1990s Anshel, Anshel, and Goldfeld proposed a new cryptosystem based on Dehn’s famous “Decision Problems” in combinatorial group theory. Their paper sparked a great debate about the effectiveness of such a cryptosystem which continues today. In this talk, we will take no sides in this debate! We will describe the particular group which Anshel, Anshel, and Goldfeld suggested for use in their cryptosystem, known as the braid group. This group is widely studied by topologists because of its close connections with knots and surfaces. We will also show how to implement the Anshel–Anshel–Goldfeld cryptoscheme using braid groups.) Refreshments were provided. Note the special day, location and time.

• Tuesday, April 15, 2008, 3:40PM, 130 Howe-Russell Geosciences Complex. Professor Hyman Bass, who is a National Medal of Science Laureate from the University of Michigan, presented the lecture "Cake Sharing, Euclidean Algorithm, and Square Tiling of Rectangles" that was accessible to all undergraduate math majors. The abstract of his talk is as follows: [This talk answers the question: If you want to equally share c cakes among s students, what is the smallest number of cake pieces required? It makes interesting connections with all the topics in the title.] Note the special day, location, and time.

• Thursday, March 13, 2008, 4:30PM, 232 Lockett. Professor Guoli Ding gave a totally awesome talk entitled "Solving Linear Inequalities with Applications to Geometry, Optimization, and Combinatorics" that was very accessible to undergrads. (Abstract: Since every equation $A = B$ can be equivalently expressed as two inequalities $A ≤ B$ and $B ≤ A$, solving inequalities can be considered a generalization of solving equations. In this talk, beginning with a very simple algorithm, we develop a general theory on solving linear inequalities. Then we will discuss applications of this theory in different areas of mathematics, including polyhedral theory, linear programming, and combinatorics.) Refreshments were provided.

• Saturday, March 8, 2008, 10AM-3:45PM, Tureaud Hall. The LSU Math Contest for Louisiana High School Students was held.

• Friday, February 29, 2008, McNeese State, Lake Charles. LSU sent two teams to compete in the "Student Team Competition" held at the meeting of the La-Miss section of the MAA. There were 26 teams from a variety of schools in Louisiana and Mississippi at the competition. One of LSU's teams finished second place. The scores for the top 4 teams were: Mississippi State 133/150, LSU 131/150, Ole Miss 114/150, Tulane 113/150.

• Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 3:40PM, 130 Howe-Russell Geosciences Complex. Professor Richard A. Askey from the University of Wisconsin presented a lecture entitled "What is Ptolemy's theorem and why is it useful to know a few different ways to prove it?" that was accessible to all undergraduate math majors and any students who had a good high school geometry course. Here is an abstract of the talk: [Ptolemy was best known for his astronomy work, but his book on this contains an important theorem in geometry which is still of interest. The theorem deals with quadrilaterals inscribed in a circle, and was important to Ptolemy as a tool to construct what we would call tables of values of trigonometric functions. We know better ways to do that now, but Ptolemy's theorem is still important, both as a way of learning important ways of attacking some geometry problems, and because of other uses of it. A number of proofs will be given, including Ptolemy's geometric proof, Euler's proof using the law of cosines, a combination of these two proofs to extend Ptolemy's theorem to general quadrilaterals, and ways to reduce this problem to a simple problem on a line.] Professor Askey is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Refreshments were provided.

• Thursday, February 21, 2008, 4:30PM, 232 Lockett. Peter Wolenski, Russell B. Long Professor of Mathematics at LSU, presented a lecture entitled "Nonsmooth Analysis: The Mathematics of Optimization" that was very appropriate for undergrads and beginning grad students in economics, engineering, and math. (Abstract: Nonsmooth analysis is the study of generalized notions of derivatives for functions that are not necessarily differentiable in the usual sense. It is an important area of mathematical analysis that undergirds much of modern optimization theory. The theory of nonsmooth analysis was developed by Francis Clarke and his school in the 1970s, and has since been employed in economics, engineering, finance, and other areas. This talk will provide a nontechnical overview of this theory and a glimpse at some of the many applications in which nonsmooth analysis has had a major impact.) Refreshments were provided.

• Thursday, February 14, 2008, 4:30PM, 232 Lockett. Project Director Peggy Wang from the Baton Rouge Transition to Teaching program talked about alternative paths to teacher certification in secondary math and science for people who aren't necessarily education majors. (Abstract: Baton Rouge Transition to Teaching (BRTTT) is looking for math students who are passionate about math and who want to make a difference in their communities. Funded by the US Department of Education, BRTTT provides an alternative path to teacher certification in secondary math and science. We are looking for nontraditional candidates including graduating seniors who are not majoring in education to help address the critical teacher shortage in math and science. Through our intensive seven-week Summer Institute, we add educational theory and instructional strategies to candidates’ content knowledge. Upon successful completion of our Summer Institute, candidates can begin teaching full-time in August. Support is a cornerstone of our program; we provide specialized training to principals and mentor teachers so that they can effectively support new teachers in their first years of teaching. We also have Robert Noyce Scholarships ranging in value from \$12,600 to \$15,000 for graduating seniors who go through our program and teach in one of our partner districts for at least two years.) Refreshments were provided.

• Thursday, February 7, 2008, 4:30PM, 232 Lockett. Professor Pallavi Dani from the University of Oklahoma Department of Mathematics presented a lecture entitled "Wallpaper Groups" that was very appropriate for undergrads. (Abstract: Anyone who has redecorated a room knows that choosing between the hundreds of wallpaper patterns in the store is a daunting task. In this talk I hope to convince you that the number of distinct wallpaper patterns is surprisingly small.) Refreshments were provided.

• Thursday, January 31, 2008, 4:30-5:00PM, 232 Lockett. This was our general interest meeting where we discussed the activities for the coming semester. We planned some totally awesome math club talks for this semester, plus we decided to send at least one team to the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana/Mississippi section of the MAA.

### Fall 2007

• Friday, December 7, 2007, 1:00-3:00PM, Keisler Lounge (321 Lockett). There were poster presentations by the Fall 2007 Math 4020 students. The research topics included "Time series analysis of human gait data", "Modeling and calculating the effects of Granulated Activated Carbon (GAC) filtering", and "Optimizing production and distribution of calcined coke with CII Carbon". All math majors were invited to hear about these projects and enjoy the light refreshments. Poster for Fall 2007 Math 4020 presentations.

• Thursday, November 15, 2007, 3:40PM, 285 Lockett. Professor Bin Li from the LSU Department of Experimental Statistics gave a talk entitled "An Introduction to Data Mining" the abstract of which was as follows: Recently, data mining has been attracting more and more attention in statistics and mathematics. This presentation will start with some motivating examples from real applications. Then I will introduce some of the latest data mining methods and illustrate them in the examples. Finally, I will discuss some challenges and opportunities specifically for mathematicians and statisticians to dive into this area.

• Thursday, November 8, 2007 at 5:00 PM, 232 Lockett. Professor James Madden presented a talk entitled "Conservation of Momentum: Euclid, Newton and Noether". Abstract: The key idea of Euclid's proof that triangles with equal bases and equal heights have the same area was used by Newton to prove the conservation of angular momentum. At a deeper level, both proofs are about symmetry. This talk tells the story of all of this—and more.

• Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 4:30PM, 232 Lockett. A number of people teaching Spring 2008 4000-level math courses gave brief presentations about their courses. Speakers included Profs. Cochran, Ding, Lax, Perlis, Sundar, and Vertigan and Postdoctoral Associate Seva Joukhovitski. This was followed by our math club elections. The following people were elected: Brad Johnston (President), Josh Moulton (Vice President), and Ge Mu (Advertising Chair). The positions of Secretary/Webmaster and Treasurer are currently vacant. All interested undergrads were invited if they did not have class at that time. No RSVP was necessary. Refreshments included pizza.

• Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 5:00 PM, 232 Lockett. Professor Alex Iosevich from the University of Missouri-Columbia presented a math club lecture entitled “The Cauchy–Schwarz inequality or… if the elephant is fat, then there must be a way to place a mirror to make this obvious…” that was easily understandable to undergrads and also appropriate for first year grad students. Professor Iosevich is a very well known expert in combinatorics and harmonic analysis, which are two of the most central and fast growing parts of pure mathematics. Combinatorics deals with problems like counting the number of possible ways to do complicated tasks. Professor Iosevich has more than 50 publications including papers in the Duke Mathematics Journal (which is considered one of the most prestigious pure math journals) and has given many important lectures including an Invited Address at the October 2007 American Mathematical Society meeting in Chicago. He gives great talks. All interested undergrads and grads were invited if they did not have class at that time. No RSVP was necessary. Refreshments were provided. (Abstract of talk: We use the Cauchy–Schwarz inequality to see that if the set occupied by the elephant in three dimensions has large volume, then at least one of its projections onto the coordinate planes has a large area. We then explore a similar question in higher dimensions, encountering fascinating analytic and combinatorial objects along the way.)

• Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 1:40PM [sic.], 232 Lockett [sic.]. John Etnyre, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Georgia Institute of Technology, presented a math club talk entitled "Knot Colorings—From Grade School to Grad School (and Back?) in One Hour" that was understandable to undergrads and first year grad students. It was an excellent opportunity for students to get a general idea of what topologists study. Professor Etnyre is a very well known expert in the field of low dimensional topology which is one of the most central and fast growing parts of pure mathematics. Topology is also important in the study of dynamical systems and theoretical physics. Etnyre has published in the Annals of Mathematics (which is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious pure mathematics journals) and is a recipient of an NSF CAREER award which is also very prestigious in topology. He gives excellent talks. All interested undergrad and grad students were invited to attend his talk if they did not have class at that time. No RSVP was necessary. Refreshments were provided. (Abstract of talk: Knots in strings and ropes have fascinated people for millennia but have only been a subject of serious mathematical inquiry for the last century or so. Their study is now a fundamental and central part of low-dimensional topology and string theory indicates they might, in some subtle and deep way, be related to how the universe works! After a brief introduction to knots as mathematical objects, I will discuss one of the simplest ways to study them, that is by coloring them. Yes, that’s right, by pulling out your good old crayons and coloring (but of course we will need a few rules about how to color to make this useful). Once we see that this simple idea can be surprisingly powerful, I will discuss how it is in fact related to the fairly sophisticated notion of representations of the fundamental group of the knot complement. (I will define and discuss all these notions.) This is a great example of the common theme in low dimensional topology that one can frequently take fairly sophisticated things (like representations, group actions, holomorphic curves…) and turn them into a fairly simple (combinatorial) thing (like colorings, polynomials, convex polygons…). This interaction between the sophisticated and the simple is one of the beautiful and appealing things about low dimensional topology.)

• Thursday, October 4, 2007 at 4:30PM, Keisler Lounge. Professor Leonard Richardson, Herbert Huey McElveen Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Mathematics at LSU, gave an informal presentation about applying to graduate school in mathematics.

### Spring 2007

• Thursday, May 10, 2007 at 11:00AM. The Mathematics Consultation Clinic presented a poster session in the Keisler Lounge based on this semester's Math 4020 capstone projects. The projects involved joint work with the William Olefins Company and the Kinesiology and Civil Engineering Departments at LSU. The poster session was followed by student talks at 11:30AM. Light refreshments were provided.

• Thursday, April 26, 2007 at 5:00PM. Geaux Teach Program Manager Sharon Besson gave a presentation about LSU's Secondary Teacher Preparation Program. (Abstract: The Geaux Teach program was modeled after the UTeach program developed at the University of Texas at Austin. This new model is based on apprenticeship, much like that found in other professions such as the medical profession. Prospective teachers get their undergraduate degree in their content areas with a secondary education concentration. In the Geaux Teach program, the teaching of teacher candidates has become a collaborative effort between content area researchers, education professors, and practicing mentor teachers. The heart of the apprenticeship program is the step courses: three of the four education classes are paired with a 1 hour lab run by a content area research professor; the course + lab includes 40 hours in a high/middle school classroom observing, tutoring, teaching and being mentored by a high/middle school teacher. These classes are taken in the three semesters leading up to student teaching, and step up the level of teaching each semester. In their education class students learn theory and pedagogy, including how to appropriately use technology and how to teach in culturally diverse settings. Further information will be available at Besson’s lecture.)

• Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 5:00PM. Professor Paul Saylor from the LSU Center For Computation and Technology presented a lecture entitled "Numerical Analysis: Do Computers Really Compute? Who Knows? Google? YouTube? Math Knows" that was of broad interest to undergraduates. (Abstract: Come one, come all. See the amazing powers and wondrous skills of numerical analysis. See before you (1) a math problem discover sensitivity on a railroad bayou; (2) proof that it’s smart to approximate; (3) a computer compute an uncommon conundrum; and (4) a mighty matrix meet its match when it fails to resist relentless recursion.) Professor Saylor is an excellent lecturer and a distinguished scholar who has made very important contributions to computational mathematics, so we really appreciated his presentation.

• Tuesday-Thursday, April 10-12, 2007 at 3:40PM each day. Richard V. Kadison, Kuemmerle Professor of Mathematics, at the University of Pennsylvania gave a series of lectures entitled "The Pythagorean Theorem from Another, Slightly Sophisticated, Point of View" in 130 Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex that were of interest to undergraduates.

• Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 5:00PM. Rick Barnard who is an advanced mathematics PhD student in the area of control theory presented a lecture entitled "What Is A Control System?" that was accessible to undergraduates who took a differential equations course. Roughly speaking, a control system is a generalization of a differential equation that has a term called a control that can be chosen to influence the behavior of the dynamics. Barnard gave an overview of the issues that arise when choosing controls and mentioned some important applications. Some especially interesting control theory links include http://ieeecss.org/ and the LSU math control research page. Control systems theory is one of the most important areas of applied mathematics and engineering. Barnard's talk and the pizza were both great!

• Saturday, March 24, 2007. The LSU High School Mathematics Contest took place. Many math club members help out with the contest.

• Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 5:00PM. Professor Padmanabhan Sundar gave a talk entitled "Large Deviations and Rare Events." Pizza was served as usual.

• Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 5:00PM. Professor Pramod Achar presented a talk entitled "Regular Complex Polytopes." Polytopes are generalized versions of polygons and polyhedra; the talk discussed their symmetry algebraically. Pizza was served as usual.

• Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 5:00PM. Professor Charles Delzell spoke about Hilbert's 17th Problem. It relates to the constructability of points in the plane with tools less powerful than straight edge and compass. Refreshments included pizza.

• Thursday, February 22, 2007 at 3:40PM. There was a panel discussion about Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs). Check https://www.ams.org/programs/students/emp-reu for more information about REUs. Panelists included Cecil Taylor Alumni Professor Robert Perlis (who is one of the lead organizers for the LSU math REU) and Professor Tara Brendle (who supervised the 2005 Cornell University math REU on mapping class groups and also participated in the REU at UT Knoxville as an undergraduate). The panelists discussed the REU problems they studied and also gave practical advice for undergraduates applying for Summer 2007 REUs.

• Friday, February 16, 2007 at 3:40PM. There was a special lecture by Professor John Perry from the University of Southern Mississippi in 285 Lockett Hall that was accessible to undergraduate math students. Professor Perry explained Groebner bases (for solving systems of polynomial equations) which provide a generalization of (or, an analogue to) the method of Gaussian elimination for solving systems of linear equations from linear algebra. All math majors and minors were encouraged to attend.

• Friday, February 16, 2007 at 2:40PM. There was a meeting about Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs) where we heard about possible paid summer research jobs. Lawrence Smolinsky (who is the chair of the LSU math department) spoke about the desirability of REUs, and faculty from the LSU math REU were invited to talk about how to apply for REUs. All math majors and minors who did not have class at that time were invited. Check https://www.ams.org/programs/students/emp-reu for more information about REUs.

• Sunday, February 11, 2007. LSU sent two teams of undergraduate math majors to compete in the "Tulane Skirmish", a regional math competition. Also competing were teams from Tulane, SLU and Loyola. The two LSU teams scored higher than anyone else.

### Fall 2006

• Friday, December 14, 2006 at 2:00-3:00PM. The LSU Mathematics Consultation Clinic held a poster session in the Keisler Lounge based on student projects for the MATH 4020 Capstone Course. The Fall 2006 projects included joint collaboration with Our Lady of the Lake Imaging Center, William Olefins Company and the LSU Kinesiology Department.

• Saturday, December 2, 2006. The LSU William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition team (Jude Melancon, Nickolas VanMeter and Daniel Whitman) participated in the Putnam exam.

• Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 5:00PM. Professors Lynn R. LaMotte, Qingzhao Yu, and Julia Volaufova from the School of Public Health in the LSU Health Sciences Center came to speak. Professor LaMotte discussed statistical work in forensic entomology, to be adapted by a graduate student to assessing aging in humans. Professor Yu talked about her work estimating crime rates from survey data, particularly accounting for the problem of getting respondents to report domestic violence when a spouse is present at the interview. She has worked on a model that produces defensible estimates of rates, including effects of non-reporting. Professor Volaufova develops statistical methods for applications of mixed linear models.

• Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 5:00PM. In early 2007, W.H. Freeman & Co. will publish a new science and engineering calculus textbook by Jon Rogawski of UCLA. The Math Club helped to check a chapter's worth of both the problems and the solutions manual for accuracy, clarity, and completeness. We covered Chapter 5, The Integral. For this service, the club will receive funds, helping to defray expenses; these expenses include pizza and travel.

• Thursday, September 28, 2006 at 5:00PM. A talk was given by Jude Melancon on "Rational realization of nonzero eigenvalues for symmetric matrices of trees and tree sign patterns;" the research underlying it was done with Atoshi Chowdhury at the Iowa State REU under Professor Leslie Hogben and graduate student Rana Mikkelson. The subject involves linear algebra and graph theory.

• Thursday, September 21, 2006 at 5:00PM. Elections were held and our new moderator, Professor Malisoff, was introduced.

### Spring 2006

• Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 6:00PM. Aliska Gibbons gave a talk on the squaring of a circle, doubling of a cube, and trisection of an angle when conic section drawing is used as well as straight edge and compass to do the construction.Her talk dealt with the research she did with Professor Smolinsky. It was the second of two parts.

• Wednesday, April 5, 2006 at 6:00PM. Professor Smolinsky give a talk on the squaring of a circle, doubling of a cube, and trisection of an angle when conic section drawing is used as well as straight edge and compass to do the construction. It was the first of two parts.

• Wednesday, March 22, 2006 at 6:00PM. Professor Stephen Shipman gave a talk on spectral theory.

• Wednesday, March 8, 2006 at 6:00PM. Professor Blaise Bourdin gave a talk titled "Applied Mathematics: Why, what, where?". He discussed how, historically, many mathematicians were also physicists, astronomer or engineers who created the tools they needed to represent the phenomena they were studying. He presented a few examples of physical problems that "classical" mathematical tools are unable to represent and briefly described the tools required for a better understanding of these problems.

• Friday, February 17, 2006. The Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America held its 2005 sectional meeting, including the student team competition, where two teams competed for LSU. The team of Ken Alleman, Sean Farley, Heath LeBlanc, and Daniel Whitman placed 1st. The team of Jude Melancon, Jack Tourres, Blake Tregre, and Nick VanMeter placed 4th.

• Wednesday, February 15, 2006 at 6:00PM. A talk was given by Nancy Hu from Career Services on what one can do with a math degree. After the talk, out MAA Sectional Meeting competition teams practiced.

• Wednesday, February 8, 2006 at 4:30PM. A talk on the mathematics of gambling was given by Professor George Cochran.

### Fall 2005

• Wednesday, November 9, 2005 at 6:00PM. A talk was given by Professor Robert Lipton on multi-scale stress analysis.

• Wednesday, October 26, 2005 at 6:00PM. Professor Scott Baldridge gave a talk titled "I can see in four dimensions and you can too."

• Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 6:00PM. A talk was given by Rick Barnard and Sean Farley on Matlab.

• Wednesday, September 28, 2005 at 6:00PM. Our first meeting was held; it included introductions and some announcements.

### Spring 2005

• Monday, April 25, 2005 at 5:30PM. Debra Czarneski gave a talk entitled "An Introduction to Zeta Functions of Finite Graphs."

• Monday, April 25, 2005 at 5:00PM. Elections were held. Sean Farley, Nick VanMeter, Jude Melancon, Daniel Whitman, and Blake Tregre were elected to the offices of President, Vice President, Secretary/Webmaster, Treasurer, and Advertising Chair respectively.

• Monday, April 18, 2005 at 3:30PM. Miao Xu gave a talk titled "Connectivity Types." These are an object of study in graph theory; he began studying them at his REU at the University of Washington in relation to inverse problems.

• Monday, April 11, 2005 at 3:30PM. Professor Michael Tom gave a talk titled "Existence and Non-existence of Nontrivial Solitary-wave Solutions for Some Nonlinear Dispersive Models." He reviewed the question of nontrivial solitary wave solutions of some nonlinear dispersive models that include the generalized K-DV and the generalized KP equations. These equations model the unidirectional propagation of small amplitude long waves in shallow water.

• Monday, April 4, 2005 at 5:00PM. Natalia Pittsyna gave a talk on traffic flow on a highway, discussed in analogy to fluid flow.

• Monday, March 28, 2005 at 5:30PM. Matt Edmonds gave a talk.

• Monday, March 14, 2005 at 3:30PM. Professor Bogdan Oporowski gave a Pi Day talk on the general topic of graph theory.

• Monday, March 7, 2005 at 5:00PM. Martin Laubinger gave a talk on card shuffling and the necessary stopping time to achieve a "random enough" permutation of the 52 cards in a traditional deck.

• Friday, March 4, 2005. The Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America held its 2005 sectional meeting, including the student team competition, in which LSU's two teams won 1st and 2nd place. The 1st place team was Heath LeBlanc, Tam Yu Man, Daniel Whitman, and Miao Xu. The 2nd place team was Sean Farley, Jude Melancon, Larkin Spires, and Nick VanMeter. Picture of our victorious teams for the 2005 MAA Sectional Meeting competition.

• Monday, February 28, 2005 at 5:00PM. Michael Aristidou spoke on "Consistency, Probability and Human Rationality." Classical consistency conditions fail to hold on human rationality. He discussed the relaxation of these consistency conditions, achieved by using fuzzy sets rather than classical sets, helping to give a more realistic account of human reason.

• Saturday, February 26, 2005. LSU hosted its 2005 High School Mathematics Contest.

• Monday, February 21, 2005 at 3:20PM. Professor Frank Neubrander gave a talk titled "Distance According to Elvis," about generalizations of the standard introductory calculus optimization problem on the quickest path to reach something in water from land.

• Saturday, February 19, 2005 at 10:00AM-Noon. LSU attended Tulane's mathematics contest (a practice for MAA's sectional meeting's student team competition).

• Monday, February 14, 2005 at 5:00PM. Piotr Maciak gave a talk on functional equations, including the Cauchy equation f(x+y)=f(x)+f(y) and the analogous f(x*y)=f(x)*f(y).

• Wednesday, February 2, 2005 at 4:00PM. Moshe Cohen gave a talk on the geometric insights of magic square enumeration, and Michael Tipton gave a short presentation on Teach for America. As a bonus, there was free pizza, a new recurring theme for meetings.

### Fall 2004

• Saturday, December 4, 2004 from 9:00AM-12:00PM and 2:00PM-5:00PM. The William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Examination was given in Lockett 240.

• Monday, November 22, 2004 at 3:30PM. Professor Stephen Shipman gave a talk on unitary matrices and skew-symmetric multilinear forms.

• Thursday, October 28, 2004 at 3:30PM. Professor Peter Wolenski gave a talk on Differentiating Non-Differentiable Surfaces.

• Monday, September 13, 2004 at 4:30. Professor David Young of LSU's Physics and Astronomy Department gave a informal talk on the contributions of early "scientists," followed by some philosophical questions.

### Spring 2004

• Wednesday, May 5, 2004 at 3:30. Professor Oliver Dasbach gave a talk titled "Playing with Knots."

• Wednesday, April 21, 2004 at 4:30. Professor Robert Lipton gave a talk titled "Homogenizing Chebyshev's Inequality."

• Monday, March 8, 2004 at 4:30. Professor Serge Lang of Yale University, famous for his research and textbooks (particularly GTM211 Algebra), gave a talk titled "Dirac Families: Approximations of 1."

• Saturday, March 6, 2004. The Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America held its 2004 sectional meeting, including the student team competition. LSU's two teams placed 1st and 3rd in a field of 33 teams.

• Saturday, February 26, 2004. LSU hosted its annual High School Mathematics Contest.

• Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 3:30PM. Professor Ricardo Estrada gave a talk titled "Euler and MacLaurin Series."

• Saturday, February 14, 2004. LSU attended the Louisiana Math Skirmish at Tulane.

### Fall 2003

• Monday, November 10, 2003 at 5:00PM. Professor Robert Perlis answered the question "What is 4.5 factorial?"

• Tuesday, October 14, 2003 at 3:30PM. Professor and Director of Graduate Studies Len Richardson gave an informal talk describing graduate study in mathematics and how one goes about applying for graduate school, complete with a question-and-answer session after.

• Tuesday, September 23, 2003 at 4:00PM. Professor Ambar Sengupta gave a talk titled "Matrix Inequalities."

### Spring 2003

• Thursday, May 1, 2003 at 3:00PM. Mark Stecher gave a talk titled "Egyptian Fractions".

• Wednesday, April 23, 2003 at 2:30PM. Professor Stephen Shipman gave a talk titled "Inverse Scattering."

### Fall 2002

• Saturday, December 7, 2002. >The William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Examination was given.

• Thursday, November 21, 2002 at 4:30. Professor George Cochran gave a talk titled "Chance in the Long Run."

• Thursday, October 24, 2002. Professor Larry Smolinsky gave a talk titled "Geometry in Higher Dimensions." In this talk, he discussed the geometry of n-dimensional space and the Platonic solids in various dimensions. A computer program showing the projections of a four dimensional Platonic solid, the 24 cell, was demonstrated. This program was written by Andrew McDaniel.

## Math Club Faculty Advisors:

The Faculty Advisor is appointed by the Associate Chair for Instruction and usually serves for a two school year term. Here's a list of our past and present advisors:

Prof. Rui Han2021–
Prof. Shea Vela-Vick2018–2021
Prof. Pramod Achar2017–2018
Prof. Mark Davidson2010–2017
Prof. Stephen Shipman2008–2010
Prof. Michael Malisoff2006–2008
Prof. Stephen Shipman2004–2006
Prof. George Cochran2002–2004