VIGRE

Math in the Media

A new web site by the American Mathematical Society collects recent article in the Media with a mathematical flavor.

A current article at the web site concerns a mysterious ad campaign by Google. It asks what is the
first 10 digit prime number in the decimal expansion of e.

Comprehensive Exams Results

The comprehensive Exams are written exams are in the subjects of Analysis and Algebra.
The most recent exams were taken just recently, and the results of the exam are out.

Six students have now passed both exams: Ian Palmer, Guido Kampel, Mark Belinski, Michael Burkhart, Alexander Yurchenko, and Alessandro Pugliese. Of these, Ian Palmer and Michael Burkhart I know passed both exams, and Mark Belinski and Alex Yurchenko passed analysis.

Three students passed the Algebra exam: Evan Borenstein, Selma Yilidrim, and Ramazan Tinaztepe.

18 students sat for the Analysis Exam, and 5 passed.

13 sat for the Algebra Exam, and 7 passed.

Stephen Young has passed the ACO comprehensives. These exams are distinct from the
Math comprehensives.

VIGRE Site Visit is Wednesday Nov 10

The National Science Foundation will send a team to assess the impact of the first two years of the VIGRE grant at Georgia Tech.

The date of their visit is Wednesday November 10. They will meet with most people associated with the School of Mathematics, Graduate students, Undergraduates, Postdocs, and Faculty, regardless of whether or not you have
had VIGRE funding. After all, the effects of the grant should be felt across a the entire range of activites of the School of Math.

Participation by all groups is most important to having a successful site visit.

"Meet the Math Majors" luncheon, 11am-1pm on Thursday, 23 September

Pi Mu Epsilon invites you to join us for the annual "Meet the Math
Majors" luncheon. The luncheon will be held in the Skiles lounge on
Thursday, September 23 from 11am to 1pm. If you're new to the department
(i.e. freshmen or new faculty), this is a great informal opportunity to
meet the rest of the department; if you've been here a while, please
encourage others to come.

Best regards,
Alan Michaels
Pi Mu Epsilon




Pi Mu Epsilon is a national mathematics honor society, which has a dual
purpose at Georgia Tech as the "math club." If you have any questions
about the organization, membership, or other events, please visit our
website (www.math.gatech.edu/~pme/) or contact us via email
(pme@math.gatech.edu).
We will send out brief announcements and begin
planning for the 2005 GT HSMC (high school mathematics competition) late
this month.

Banuleos wins Blackwell-Tapia Prize

Rodrigo Banuelos, of Purdue University, has been awarded the 2004 Blackwll-Tapia prize. Rodrigo is a good friend of many of us here. The honor given to him is well deserved.

A message from IPAM, at UCLA.

We are pleased to inform you that the 2004 Blackwell-Tapia Prize has
been awarded to Rodrigo Banuelos of Purdue University. We hope that you
will be able to join us for a stimulating workshop and festive
celebration of Rodrigo's work, and of this prize and the values that it
stands for. The 2004 Blackwell-Tapia Conference and Prize Presentation
will be held Friday and Saturday, November 5-6, at the Institute for
Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM), located on the UCLA campus. The
conference website is located at
http://www.ipam.ucla.edu/programs/btl2004/ , where it is possible to
register and to apply for funding.

We hope that you will be able to attend this event, and that you will
bring along a spirited group of African-American, Chicano/a and Native
American undergraduates, graduate students and colleagues. There will be
a poster session where students can present their work, and also some
slots available for student talks--let us know if you have some
potential poster presenters or speakers.

Sincerely yours,

Carlos Castillo-Chavez
Mark Green
William Massey
Robert Megginson
Richard Tapia




Blackwell-Tapia Conference and Prize Presentation

November 5 - 6, 2004

IPAM Building (Across from Moore Hall)
Main Lecture Room: Rm 1200


Friday, November 05, 2004
1:30 - 2:30 Check-In
2:30 - 3:30 Richard Tapia (Rice University )
3:30 - 5:30 Poster Session
4:30 - 5:30 Wine/Cheese Reception (Hosted by IPAM)


Saturday, November 06, 2004
Morning Session

9:00 - 10:00 Continental Breakfast
10:00 - 11:00 Trachette Jackson (University of Michigan)
"Joaquin-Bustoz Lecture"

11:00 - 11:30 Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:30 Carlos Bustamante (Cornell University)
"Evolutionary Consequence of Amino Acid Variation within
the Human Genome "

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch (on your own)

Afternoon Session
1:30 - 2:45 Two Parallel sessions of students talks ( three 20 minute
talks in each session)
2:45 - 3:00 Break
3:00 - 3:30 Opportunities at IPAM
3:30 - 4:30 Michael Cranston (University of California, Irvine) 4:30 -
5:00 Break
5:00 - 6:00 Rodrigo Banuelos (Purdue University)
"Prize-Winners Lecture"
6:00 - 7:30 Dinner (Hosted by IPAM) Including Presentation of Prize,
Acceptance Speech

NSA's Director's Summer Program & Graduate Mathematics Program

The NSA's Summer 2005 program has a very early deadline since
participants have to pass a security clearance.

There are Undergraduate and Graduate Programs. Stephen Young particpated
in the Grad program this past summer.

The undergrad announcement is below, and the graduate announcement after the jump.

-------------------------------------------
THE DIRECTOR'S SUMMER PROGRAM
at
THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

CRYPTOLOGIC MATHEMATICS FOR EXCEPTIONAL UNDERGRADUATE
MATHEMATICIANS

Mrs. Jacqueline A. Holmgren, Program Manager
math@afterlife.ncsc.mil

***********DEADLINE IS 15 OCTOBER*************

The Director's Summer Program is the National Security Agency's premier
outreach to the nation's most outstanding undergraduate mathematics
majors. Each summer we invite two dozen exceptional students to
collaborate with each other and with NSA mathematicians on problems
critical to the intelligence gathering and information assurance
missions of the agency. Admission to the 12-week program is highly
competitive. Applicants should have a demonstrated superior
mathematical aptitude. A full year of abstract algebra and analysis
are recommended. Some computer experience is desirable, particularly
with C or C++ and mathematical software packages.

The goals of the Director's Summer Program are to:

* introduce the future leaders of the U.S. mathematics
community to the Agency's mission and share with them the
excitement of working on mathematics problems of national
importance;

* provide a deep understanding of the vital role that
mathematics plays in enabling the Agency to tackle a diverse
set of technical challenges;

* encourage bright undergraduate mathematics majors to continue
their study of mathematics and pursue careers in the
mathematical sciences; and, of course, to

* solve current operational problems.

DSP participants work on a wide range of problems in mathematics,
cryptology, and communications technology. These problems often involve
applications of abstract algebra, geometry, number theory, probability,
statistics, combinatorics, graph theory, algorithms, computer science,
and analysis. Introductory lectures on modern cryptologic mathematics
will be given at the beginning of the summer; at the same time,
approximately ten current problems will be presented. Each student will
choose one or two as the focus for his or her research. Students are
expected to document their work in technical papers which are internally
published at the agency.

Information about the Director's Summer Program is sent to over 300
colleges and universities each year. Because of the lengthy security
processing required, the deadline for applications is 15 October each
year. To apply, a student should send a resume, at least two letters of
recommendation from faculty members familiar with their technical work,
and current transcripts. A list of courses which will have been
completed by the end of the academic year should also be included.
**Students must be U.S. citizens.** All information should be sent to:

Department of Defense
National Security Agency
9800 Savage Road
Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6515
Attn: R1 (DSP), Suite 6515.

DSP, located at Fort Meade, Maryland, runs from end of May through
middle of August. Students are paid a salary commensurate with their
education level. Responsibility for housing finances rest with the
student. Students who attend out-of-state schools are eligible for
round trip airline ticket to and from school or mileage reimbursement
up to cost of government issued airline ticket.

The Director's Summer Program is an extremely rewarding summer
experience! For additional information, call Mrs. Jacquie Holmgren,
Program Manager at (301) 688-0983 or send e-mail to
math@afterlife.ncsc.mil. For more information about career
opportunities at the NSA visit www.nsa.gov.

THE GRADUATE MATHEMATICS PROGRAM
at
THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

CRYPTOLOGIC MATHEMATICS FOR EXCEPTIONAL GRADUATE
STUDENTS IN MATHEMATICS

Mrs. Jacqueline A. Holmgren, Program Manager
math@afterlife.ncsc.mil

***********DEADLINE IS 15 OCTOBER*************

The Graduate Mathematics Program provides an opportunity for exceptional
mathematics graduate students to work directly with NSA mathematicians
on mission-critical problems and experience the excitement of the NSA
mathematics community. Admission to the 12-week program is highly
competitive. Applicants must be U.S. citizens who are
currently enrolled in a mathematics graduated program.

Applicants should have demonstrated superior mathematical aptitude and
problem-solving skills. Evidence of successful work on an independent
project in pure or applied mathematics or computer science is
desirable. Applicants may be at any stage in their graduate careers and
working, or intending to work, in any area of mathematics. Computer
programming experience, especially C or C++, is desirable.

State of the art computer software resources are available to Graduate
Mathematics Program participants. Computational software packages such
as MATHEMATICA, MATHLAB, MAGMA, MAPLE and SPLUS are also available.

Information about the Graduate Mathematics Program is sent to over 300
colleges and universities across the United States. Because of the
lengthy security processing required, the deadline for applications is
15 October each year. To apply, a student must send a resume, at least
two letters of recommendation from faculty members familiar with their
work, and a copy of undergraduate and graduate transcripts through the
current academic year. All information should be sent to:

Department of Defense
National Security Agency
9800 Savage Road
Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6515
Attn: R1 (GMP) Suite 6515.

GMP, located at Fort Meade, Maryland, runs from end of May through
middle of August. Students are paid a salary commensurate with their
education level. Responsibility for housing finances rest with the
student. Students who attend out-of-state schools are eligible for
round trip airline ticket to and from school or mileage reimbursement
up to cost of government issued airline ticket.

For additional information about the Graduate Mathematics Program, call
Mrs. Jacquie Holmgren, Program Manager at (301) 688-0983 or send e-mail
to math@afterlife.ncsc.mil. For more information about career
opportunities at the NSA visit www.nsa.gov.

Liang Peng named von Humboldt Professor

Professor Liang Peng has just received a Humboldt Fellowship,
which will support a 6 month's stay in Germany
within the next year.

The von Humboldt Foundation sponsors a large number of scholarhips and fellowships in a full range of academic disciplines for study and research at German universities and institutes.

Congratulations, Liang Peng.

Welcome to New Faculty

We welcome to Georgia Tech, and the School of Mathematics,
two new tenure track faculty, and three VIGRE postdocs.

Matt Baker brings to the faculty expertise in algebraic number theory,
and a lot interest in sharing that expertise with GT undergraduates and
graduate students. He comes to GT most recently from University
of Georgia at Athens. Matt is a 1999 Berkeley PhD, and had a postdoctoral
position at Harvard.

Serge Guillas has expertise in Statistics, and for the last two years, has been involved in an interdisciplinary effort to assess the long term evolution of stratospheric ozone.

The three VIGRE postdocs are Nathan Geer, from the University of Oregon,
with an interest in knot theory. Svetlana Krat and Dmitry Gerenrot both come from Penn State University. Svetlana does research in geometry, and Dmitry in non-commutative geometry.

Houdre Named IMS Fellow

A message from Professor Trotter:

External recognition of the singular achievements of
members of the School of Mathematics family continues
to pour in ... a ringing tribute to the talent and energy
exhibited throughout the halls of Skiles. Here are three recent
examples.

Christian Houdre has been named a Fellow of the Institute
of Mathematical Statistics. Professor Houdre received the
award for his outstanding work in the theories and applications
of non-stationary, non-Gaussian processes, wavelet transforms,
and isoperimetric inequalities.

Each Fellow nominee is assessed by a committee of his/her peers for the
award. In 2004, after reviewing 37 nominations, 12 were selected for
Fellowship. Created in 1933, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics is a
member organization which fosters the development and dissemination of the
theory and applications of statistics and probability. The IMS has 3800
active members throughout the world. Approximately 10% of the IMS
membership has earned the status of fellowship.

Mona Meddin in the Math Lab

Mona Meddin has joined the School of Mathematics as an Academic Professional. Ms Meddin, who has been at Georgia Tech since 1986,
has a long involvement with specialized help for students outside of the
classroom setting.

The MathLab is a long running lab for drop in tutoring for core curriculum
math courses, all of the Calculus classes for instance. With no person
directly involved in the operation of the Lab, it is probably an under utilized
service. Ms Meddin has a number of ideas for improving the usefulness
of the Lab.

This includes expanding the list of client courses, up to the Junior level courses, which are largely service courses for other departments, to widening the expertise of the tutoring availible. One of the more interesting ideas is encouraging Professors to hold an office hour in the Lab.

The Bidding for an Erdos Number of 5

A few weeks ago, an auction held at Ebay gave the winning bidder
40 hours of research time from an erstwhile graduate student.
The person in question has an Erdos Number of 4, so the winning bidder
would have an Erdos number of 5.

An Erdos number refers back to the number of links through coauthors on published papers needed to trace back the famously prolific Pal Erdos.

It turns out that the auction had an unusual denoument, as detailed in this article from Science News.

Georgia Tech students don't have to go to Ebay for this small piece of fame.
Professors Duke, Trotter, and Tetali are all among the 509 coauthors of Uncle Pal. Write a paper with one of them, and you'll join the nearly 7000 people with
an Erdos number of 2. More such facts can be found at the Erdos Number Project.

Football Bowl Rankings

Peter Mucha, Mason Porter, and Thomas Callaghan's having been thinking about the problems and alternatives in Football Bowl Rankings. Their article has just been posted at the
Notices of the AMS.

It is free to the world to read. This project begain as an VIGRE sponsored REU project. The work
has captured a wide audience, having been reported in Nature Online, and ESPN Magazine.
In fact ESPN was the first to publish a piece on their work.

Steven Lansel's Billiards Software

Steven Lansel is an undergraduate, with double majors in EE and Math. He, with
Professors Porter, Bunimovich, and Mucha, has been developing software to simulate the
dyanimics of billiard tables of general specification.

Above, is a `mushroom.' Half of an ellipse sitting on a rectangle. Some periodic orbits are shown.

The website has a lot more pictures,
some documentation, and the MATLAB code.

Quantum Info Theory

New Course Announcement for the Fall Semester

Physics 8803C - Special Topic - Quantum Information Theory

Instructor : Dr. John Cortese (GTRI)

This course is a broad introduction to quantum information theory
and quantum communication theory. Topics to be covered include :

* Closed and open quantum system dynamics.
* Mathematical formulation of a quantum channel.
* The complete positivity constraint on quantum channels.
* Measurements in closed and open quantum systems.
* The classical channel capacity of a quantum channel -
How many classical bits can one send over a quantum channel ?
* The quantum state channel capacity of a quantum channel - How well
does a quantum state "survive" transmission over a quantum channel ?
* Quantum state compression.
* Quantum state coding theory.
* Open questions in Quantum Information Theory.

The discussion of each topic will begin with an overview of
the classical concept, and proceed to the quantum version.

The target audience for this course is advanced undergraduates and
graduate students in Physics, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science. Prerequisites are an undergraduate course in
quantum mechanics or permission of the instructor.

Grading Scheme : Pass/Fail
Course Credits : 3 Credit Hours
Time/Location : MWF 2-3 PM, Room : Howey N210

Text : Quantum Computation and Quantum Information
by Michael Nielsen and Ike Chuang.

For more information, please see the course url at
www.physics.gatech.edu/academics/Classes/fall2004/8803/c.
Also feel free to contact John Cortese at (404) 385 - 2930
or john.cortese AT gtri.gatech.edu.

More on the The Millennium Problems

The London Review of Books has a review of Keith Devlin's book on the
Clay Math Millennium problems, `The Millennium Problems: The Seven Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time.'

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n14/moor02_.html

The review is by A W Moore, a fellow in Philosophy at Oxford.

In the same article, is a sympathetic portrait of Louis de Branges, who
currently claims the solution to the Invariant Subspace Problem, and the
Invariant Subspace Problem.

The portrait by Karl Sabbagh, also paints the Mathematical community as
somewhat cruel hearted about de Branges' claims. He does mention that
de Branges' version of the proofs has changed several times over the last
ten years. But does not mention the time that a range of very serious mathematicians have spend trying to verify earlier versions of the proofs.

I was at Indiana University when the earliest versions of the proofs came out.
Ciprian Foias and Hari Bercovici were part of a multi week seminar during
which de Branges saught to explain the proof. Later, a concrete error was found. This story has been repeated several times, which Mr Sabbagh does not mention.

Nat Chafee has Retired

Professor Nate Chafee, being toasted in this picture from last May, has retired. During his retirement, he will be enjoying his family home in Maine, Fall trips to Europe, and working on a history of the School of Mathematics.

Is Mathematics a Sport?

Jordan Ellenberg has a fun piece at Slate on just this question. After all, chess was a exhibition sport
at the Sydney Olympics.

Jordan Ellenberg has an established reputation as a mathematician. (You can serach the name at MathSciNet.) And guides the graduate program at Princeton
University. He writes well on the topic of Mathematics.

Eric Heller's Beautiful Art

The image is a four dimensional torus, projected onto two dimensions.
The colors emphasize the cusps and caustics associated with the projection.

This image is taken from Eric J Heller's website which is filled with lovely images, inspired by familiar topics like the one above, but also other current research, such as quantum chaos.

Eric Heller is on the Physics faculty at Harvard. Much of the website is geared
towards making the casual found objects of physicists (and mathematicians) into beautiful images.

PhDs at Google

An amusing sunday read on the role of the PhD in industry, especially at
Google and Microsoft.

In the middle is a nice summary of a difference between the Masters and the PhD, relevant to those majors considering these two degrees.

Rajeev Motwani, a computer science professor at Stanford, says: "Good Ph.D. students are extreme in their creativity and self-motivation. Master's students are equally smart but do not have the same drive to create something new." The master's takes you where others have been; the doctorate, where no one has gone before.

Free login required to read the full article. Use the login in "gtmath" and the pass "Atlanta."

Buy your Erdos Number

William Tozier, who will be a graduate student in Operations Research
at Ann Arbor, has auctioned his research services on ebay.

The winner of the auction Ian Grove-Stephensen, will get 40 hours of Mr Tozier's services. Any publication that results will be a jointly authored paper.
Since Mr Tozier has an Erdos number of 4, Mr Grove-Stephensen will be then
have an Erdos number of 5.

Paul Erdos, who died just a few years ago, was a fantastically prolific mathematician, with well over 1000 publications, most of them joint.
The Erdos number is a crude measure of Paul Erdos' influence on mathematics.
An individual's Erdos number is the mininum number of coauthors needed to trace back to Erdos himself. So direct coauthors with Paul Erdos would have a
Erdos number of 1. Their coauthors would in turn have an Erdos number of 2, and so on.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has an article about the auction. You can also see Mr Tozier's
blog .

Spring Picnic Photos

Rena Brakebill has set a page with a number of photos of the
Math Spring Picnic.

Featured in this photo are, left to right, Alan Michaels (grad), Trong Nguyen (under), Stephanie Bent (under), and Patty Pichardo (grad). They are receiving an award for their outstanding work in getting the High School Math Competition up and running this year.

Problem of the Week

David Jimenez, a graduate student, has set up a Problem of the Week page.

Email subcriptions to the Page are availible.

Primes in Arithmetic Progression

Ben Green, of the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and Terrance
Tao of UCLA, have established a remarkable result on the prime numbers, that
they contain arbitrairly long arithmetic progressions, and indeed, every
subset of the primes of postivie density also contain such progressions.

The paper is at the arXiv.

Ivars Peterson has a nice write up of it at Science News.

And also see Terrance Tao's What's New page for more background on how this
remarkable proof was found.

National Science Board on declining US PhDs

The New York Times for the second time this week has an article about declining numbers of science PhDs.

The impetus this time is a new report by the National Science Board. From the NYT article:

"For many years we have benefited from minimal competition in the global science and engineering labor market," he said. "But attractive and competitive alternatives are now expanding around the world."

The press release from the National Science Board states that "U.S.-based authors continue to produce the largest share of scientific journal articles, but U.S. article output has flattened since 1992, a trend that has not been observed in other developed countries. The National Science Foundation (NSF) is engaged in an in-depth study of worldwide trends in article production and how and why they may be changing (Chapter 5)."

The full report is here.

School of Math gets 2 FRG awards

Faculty at the School of Mathematics have received two Focused Research Groups awards.
These are highly competetive awards, with well under 10% of all applications funded. The awards fund research that cannot be done within the scope of a single mathematics department. These awards are:

 

1.  Robin Thomas - Georgia Tech  

     Paul Seymour - Princeton

     Neil Robertson - Ohio State

 

To investigate questions in Graph Theory, building upon the recent solution of the Perfect Graph Conjecture.

 

2.  Wilfrid Gangbo - Georgia Tech (total budget $804K)

      Luis Caffarelli - Texas

      Lawrence Evans - Berkeley

      Mikhail Feldman - Wisconsin

     Robet McCann - Toronto

 

For investigations into Monge Ampere equation and mass transfer. This is the second FRG award to go to this group of people.

US leading role in Science in Decline

An article in the New York Times points to a recent trend of the United States position of a leader in science and innovation as being eroded.

Europe and Asia are increasingly the locations of authors of the patents, and papers published in leading scientific papers. The number of PhDs is up in these regions. And the number of PhDs from these regions who are trained in the US, and then return is also up. Of course graduate admissions from this area are also down. All of this points to an area of significant concern about the role of science and technology in the future of the US.

A Gerogia Tech professors from Public Policy, Dana Hicks, is quoted prominently in the article.

Ryan Hynd's Note of Thanks

This note is posted at Ryan Hynd's request.

Ryan Hynd is graduating from Georgia Tech with BS and a Masters Degree, is attending graduate school at UC Berkeley in Mathematics, and has been an active participant in VIGRE/REU activities since the summer of 2003.

The message from Ryan Hynd:
I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone in the school of math. You have
all, in some way or another, contributed to the wonderful experience I
have had here. I feel very fortunate to have been a student of
mathematics at Georgia Tech.

I'd like to give a special thanks to Michael Lacey and John McCuan. Dr.
Lacey has served as my undergraduate adviser and has been there to help
guide me every step of the way. Dr. Lacey took an interest in me early
on, and has really encouraged me to do well. I should say that Dr. Lacey
has had a similar influence on many other undergrads at tech. Every
school of math needs a guy like him.

I met John McCuan when I participated in the school of math REU program,
and he introduced me to things like differential geometry, soap films, and
rotating drops. I became interested in Dr. McCuan's work, and after the
REU he allowed me to work on some problems with him. The times that I have
been able to make progress on his problems are among my finest moments as
a student. I cannot emphasize enough how much working with Dr. McCuan has
contributed towards my development.

Along with Dr. Lacey and Dr. McCuan, there were many others in the school
of math that took the time to get to know me. I really benefited from
those interactions and I will always cherish those times.

Thanks again, I remain in debt to you all.
Ryan

Guggenheim Fellowships Announced

The 2004 Guggenheim Fellowhships have been announced. Those with an affiliate with a Mathematics department are listed below. Yours truly is one of them.

Michael P. Brenner, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics, Harvard University: Mathematical
models in developmental biology.

Huai-Dong Cao, A. Everett Pitcher Professor of Mathematics, Lehigh University: The Ricci flow on Kaehler manifolds.


Panagiota Daskalopoulos, Professor of Mathematics, Columbia University: Studies in nonlinear diffusion equations.


Michael T. Lacey, Professor of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology: Singular integrals on smoothly varying
lines.


Manil Suri, Writer, Silver Spring, Maryland; Professor of Mathematics, University of Maryland Baltimore County:
Fiction.

William R. Zame, Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles:
Theoretical and experimental studies of financial markets.

Gardner Fest

The Gardner Fest is a biennial event, named after Martin Gardner, the legendary Scientific American columnist.

It is an invitation only event, sponsored by a local Atlanta businessman. Two years ago, we had John Conway as a speaker, in part because of the Conway's attendence at the Gardner Fest.

The Fest is in the New York Times today.

GT Overview Slides Updated

The Overview of the VIGRE program, the pdf file link the upper left of the screen,
has been updated, to reflect recent awards, and recruits to the program.

BTW, this file was produced entirely inside of LaTex. Use the Beamer package.
It is highly recommended.

Recent Papers from Georgia Tech

You can get a quick summary of some of the recent research interests of the
School of Mathematics faculty and graduate students by following the two
Arxiv links, one for Mathematics .

As I write this, the lead article is by a graduate student, Rafael Komendarczyk.
Professors Carlen and Ganbo's recent Annals of Math article on the use of the Wasserstein metric in PDEs appears halfway down the list, as does Professor Croot's Annals of Math paper on coloring fractions.

This is interesting, but not complete, picture of research at GT Math. It doesn't reveal the
papers posted to the Non linear Science ArXiv. Nor do all professors actively use the ArXiv
to post their papers.

Upcoming Steltson Lectures

The Steltson Lectures will consist of three seperate events:

Two Lectures by Professor Gerhad Huisken on Feb 19 and 20th. And to lead off the events, a comic monolog by Josh Kornblouth on his experience with matheamtics at Princeton. This event will be ticketed, and GT students can
get reduced tickets of $5.

Professor Gerhard Huisken, of the Albert-Einstein-Institut für Gravitationsphysik of the Max-Planck Society, will deliver this year's Stelson Lecture on February 19th. Professor Huisken, a master expositor and expert on curvature driven flows, will describe in two lectures the striking recent developments in curvature flow and the situations in which they apply, including relations to Perelman's recent proof of the Poincaré conjecture. Huisken's first lecture, Classifying manifolds and hypersurfaces by geometric evolution equations, is intended for a general audience.

Geeks & the NFL

With a no-superstar Super Bowl game being played today, I was wondering about the role of statistics in Football. After all, Bill James' Statistical Abstract of Baseball had been making the press quite a bit. Long an outsider, there is
now a core of managers who follow the Jamesian approach to baseball. James
is himself an advisor to the Red Sox.

It turns out that new analyses of Football strategy are being formed, and
are incorporated into the strategies of the New England Patriots. A New York Times article reports that the Coach of the Patriots had read a working paper by David Romer on fourth down strategy.

The Boston Globe has an article on Aaron Schatz, a football Pythagoras in the words of the article.

A lot more of Schatz' football data is at his Football Outsiders web site.

arXiv Begins Endorsement Policy

The arXiv is a freely availible
database of scientific papers, principally in physics and Mathematics.
Over the last few years, the arXiv has grown explosively, to become a
vital resource to the scientific community.

This database, while largely automated, does require some human intervention to maintain. A small group of largely invisible moderators have been monitoring all submissions to the arXiv, principally for appropriate content, and
placement in the arXiv.

On 17 January 2004, the arXiv has started an endorsement policy, under which new submitters may have to obtain endorsement of the appropriateness of their submission from a current submitter to the arXiv. As the full policy states, this should have the effect of keeping the arXiv relevant to the scientific community in a manner that will keep pace with its growth in the future.

The arXiv permits an email subscription to the new articles placed in the database, a very useful tool. See the help page for more information.

High School Mathematics Competition

A High School Mathematics Competition will be held at Georgia Tech on Saturday, 20 March, 2004.

This all day competiton will have as prizes at least $4,000 in scholarships
to attend Georgia Tech.

The revival of this old Georgia Tech tradition is in large part due to the efforts of Nguyen Truong, and the new Pi Mu Epsilon leadership of Alan Michaels, Stephanie Brent, and Patricia Pichardo.

Current Events in Mathematics

From the AMS website:

AMS President David Eisenbud organized an AMS Special Session, Current Events in Mathematics (1,617 KB pdf of the talks) at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Friday, January 9. The well-attended session featured The Interior-Point Revolution in Optimization: History, Recent Developments and Lasting Consequences, presented by Margaret Wright; What Is Motivic Integration?, by Thomas C. Hales; It Is Easy to Determine Whether or Not a Given Integer is Prime, by Andrew Granville; and Perelman's Recent Work on the Classification of 3-Manifolds, by John W. Morgan.

The PDF file linked above is interesting, but a bit of a mess. The pages of the
four seperate article wind up being mixed up in a peculiar way. Too bad, as the speakers at the session worked to provide their contributions in electronic form
in a timely way.

VIGRE Update

The VIGRE program at Georgia Tech is halfway through the second year of the program.
The semester, we recruite the third and fnal round of graduate students and postdocs
to the program.

With the third year review coming up, it's a good time for an overview of the project, and
begin to think about the future. A pdf presentation
is availible.

Mentors for Women in Math

AWM Mentor Network

The goal of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Mentor
Network is to match mentors, both men and women, with girls and women who
are interested in mathematics or are pursuing careers in mathematics. The
network is intended to link mentors with a variety of groups: recent
PhD's, graduate students, undergraduates, high school and grade school
students, and teachers. Matching is based on common interests in careers
in academics or industry, math education, balance of career and family,
or general mathematical interests.

Interested? Here is what you can do.

BE A MENTOR or VOLUNTEER: Volunteer to mentor someone in their pursuit
of their mathematical interests or to help the AWM Mentor Network in
other ways. As a mentor you don't have to have all of the answers, but
you can help to make the connection to someone or someplace that does! We
invite mentors, and anyone else who is interested to join the Mentor
Network Forum on the AWM Forum Web Site, http://www.awm-math.org. We
strongly encourage mentors, mentees, and their institutions to join AWM so
that they can stay informed on opportunities and resources available
through the AWM.

REQUEST A MENTOR: Would you like to find out about opportunities for
math degrees or careers? Do you need some advice as you pursue your
mathematical studies or career? Do you have questions for someone who has
experience and expertise as a mathematician? Then request to be matched
with a mentor from the AWM Mentor Network!

Just fill out a form on the Mentor Network web site.

For more information, contact:
Contact: Prof. Rachel Kuske
Department of Mathematics, UBC
#121-1984 Mathematics Road
Vancouver BC VKT 1Z2
phone: (604)822-4973
fax: (604)822-6074
email: rachel@math.ubc.ca
http://www.math.ubc.ca/~rachel

Check out the AWM web site for more AWM activities!
http://www.awm-math.org

Winners of the EMS Article Competition

The European Mathematical Society (EMS), through its committee for
Raising Public Awareness of Mathematics, ran a competition for articles
that have appeared in a newspaper or general magazine. First prize:
"Unbreakable cyber-secrets," Nuno Crato (Instituto superior de Economia
e Gestao, Universidade Tecnica de Lisboa, Portugal); second prize:
"Playing a Trick on Uncertainty," by F. Thomas Bruss (Universite Libre
de Bruxelles, Belgium); third prize: "For those who think mathematics
dreary," by Sava Grozdev, Ivan Derzhanski and Evgenia Sendova (Union of
Bulgarian Mathematicians, Sofia, Bulgaria). Read the winning articles,
in their original languages and translated into English.

http://www.mat.dtu.dk/people/V.L.Hansen/rpa/resultartcomp.html.

Sotheatern Geometry Days

The Southeast Geometry Seminar will take place at Emory next Wednesday December 10.

This is a semiannual event, organized by Emory, Georgia Tech, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. John McCuan will report on joint work
with undergrad Ryan Hynd, work which started in the 2002 VIGRE REU.

Call for World Directory of Home Pages

A Message from the International Mathematics Union:

4. PERSONAL HOME PAGES AND AN ELECTRONIC VERSION OF THE
WORLD DIRECTORY OF MATHEMATICIANS (EWDM): A SUGGESTION OF THE CEIC

After the discontinuation of the WDM was announced in IMU-Net 1 a
number of colleagues asked whether it would be possible to establish
an electronic version of WDM. The IMU Committee on Electronic Information
and Communication (CEIC, see http://www.ceic.math.ca) has attended to
this request and investigated the possibilities.

Due to the limited financial means of the IMU there is no way to set up
and maintain a central registry such as the combined membership list of
AMS/MAA/SIAM/etc., see
http://www.ams.org/cml

It seems feasible, though, to keep a central list - based on distributed
input and voluntary contributions. CEIC proposes to give this idea a try
and start with a basic version of an Electronic World Directory of
Mathematicians (EWDM).

The CEIC would like to couple this suggestion with the request to every
mathematician to offer a personal homepage on the Web. With respect to
the contents and structure of such a personal homepage CEIC proposes the
design of a standardized personal homepage for mathematicians, to be
called the Mathematician's Professional Homepage (MPH), that contains
personal mathematical information in an organized fashion - just as the
Math-Net Page is designed to display institutional mathematical
information in a structured way. The design comes in two versions, a
simple design and a more elaborate one.

The plea to offer and maintain a structured personal webpage should not
be interpreted as a bureaucratic dampening of individual style. Reasons
why structured webpages are desirable can be found at
http://www.mathunion.org/MPH-EWDM

The Personal Homepage Call

IMU asks every mathematician to set up and maintain a personal homepage.
IMU requests that this homepage is presented in a userfriendly way, and
suggests a structure along the lines of the Mathematician's Professional
Homepage (MPH).

The Electronic World Directory of Mathematicians Call

IMU plans to set up and maintain an Electronic World Directory of
Mathematicians (EWDM). Every mathematician who has a homepage is asked to
register the homepage through the EWDM registration mechanism, see
http://www.mathunion.org/ewdm/join.php

For detailed information on these suggestions click on
http://www.mathunion.org/MPH-EWDM

Please follow these calls!

Hamilton and Tao Awarded 2003 Clay Research Awards

2003 Clay Research Awards announced

Richard Hamilton (Columbia University) and Terence Tao (UCLA) have been awarded the 2003 Clay Research Awards, which recognize extraordinary achievement in mathematics. Hamilton was recognized for his introduction of the Ricci flow equation and his development of it into one of the most powerful tools in geometry and topology. Tao was recognized for his ground-breaking work in analysis, notably his optimal restriction theorems in Fourier analysis, his work in wave map equation, and his global existence theorems for KdV type equations. See the Clay Mathematics Institute website for more information on the award winners, their research, and the Institute. [Item posted 11/21/03

Simulated Simians Pick Best Football Teams As Well As Pros

The Georgia Tech Press Release on College Football Bowl rankings is at:

GT News Release web site.

This item reports the joint work of Thomas Callaghan (undergrad) Mason Porter (postdoc) and Peter Mucha (professor). Work that arose out of last summer's REU project.

There are several more Blog entries on this in the recent past.

Monkeys and Collge Football on Nature Science Online

A research project of Peter Mucha, Mason Porter, and
undergraduate Thomas Callaghan has made into
Nature Science Online (Nature is a top journal in science
publications.)

The research project, coming out of last summer's VIGRE
sponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates,
concerns Bowl Rankings for College Football.
Specifically, using a random method to do the things that
others use very complicated statistics to do.

The link is:
Nature Online

Their article is at the ArXiv.


And a short intro to the work is at Professor Mucha's Web Site.

How Well Can Monkeys Rank Football Teams?

That is the question that Professors Mucha, Porter and undergraduate Thomas
Callaghan ask. And they find that the Monkeys do a pretty repsectable job.

This article was featured on ESPN's magazine called "The Spin."

This investigation has a short intro here,
but you really want to check out the graphics in the full article.

The inspiration comes from the odd end of season rankings that come out of the complicated
mechanism used to rank College Football, at the time of the end of season College Football
Bowl games. Part of the confusion comes from the fact that a full season of football consists of
about 11 games, with some of those games deliberately played against weaker teams. That leaves relatively few head to head games between top teams.

But does the complicated mechanisms compensate for this? Callaghan, Mucha and Porter look into it by designing a simple random mechanism to select the end of year rankings, and compare their results to the actual decisions, concentrating on a few especially interesting years.

Fun reading. Highly recommended. This might be making it's way to ESPN soon!

Arithmetic Combinatorics

Professor Ernie Croot, who has just started as tenure track professor at Georgia Tech, will offer a Special Topics course in "Arithmetic Combinatorics." This course listed as a Graduate and a Undergraduate course.

Math 4803: Arithmetic Combinatorics MWF 1105-1155am

Arithmetic combinatorics is a branch of number theory and combinatorics that aims to show that every subset of the integers with certain
prescribed properties must have a particular substructure. For example,
a classic theorem due to K. F. Roth asserts that for all sufficiently large integers X, any subset S of {1,2,...,x} having at least x/\log\log x members must contain a three-term arithmetic progression. By this we mean a must contain a three-term arithmetic progression, by which we mean a
triple of integers a,b,c, with a and b distinct, such that a+b = 2c.

The main results in this area are proved using a variety of methods and techniques taken from graph theory, probability theory, geometric
combinatorics, harmonic analysis, and analytic number theory (in particular, the circle method). Even so, no prior background, except a knowledgeof elementary number theory, basic analysis, combinatorics, and
probabilitytheory, will be necessary. The main requirement will be mathematical maturity, and an ability to read through and present proofs.

The main topics I plan to cover are as follows:

1. Schur's theorem on monochromatic solutions to $x+y=z$, basic
Ramsey Theory, and van der Waerden's theorem.

2. The classical combinatorial inequalities: Cauchy-Davenport
inequality,
Shnirel'man's theorem, Kneser's inequality, and others.

3. Basic estimates for points on varieties on ${\bf Z}/N{\bf Z}$ and
$F_q$ (where $q$ is a prime power). The methods used here will be
purely
classical, and will mostly involve Gauss and Jacobi sums.

4. The circle method and applications to Waring's problem.

5. Behrend's lower bound for the densest subsets of the integers free
of 3-term arithmetic progressions. Rankin-Laba-Lacey's result for
k-term progressions.

6. Roth's theorem on 3-term arithmetic progressions. Sarkozy's result.

7. Szemeredi's theorem, and H. Furstenberg's ergodic theory proof.

8. Szemeredi and Heath-Brown's Improvement of Roth's theorem.

9. Plunnecke's inequality, Ruzsa's finite group version of Freiman's
theorem, and the version in the integers.

10. Lower bounds for the maximum size of the product set $A \cdot A$
and sumset $A+A$: The Szemeredi-Trotter theorem, and Elekes's
application
to sums and products.
\bigskip

Depending on the amount of time it takes to get through these topics, I
may decide to remove some from the list, but I may also decide to add
a few more. In addition to my own weekly lectures, I will try to
encourage
everyone to read through some of the papers in the literature and give
in-class expositions.

Intel's Andy Grove on Job Future

The problem of job migration overseas was addressed by a Intel's legendary
Andy Grove, today. The speech was covered by several news agencies,
such as The Register.

In the speech, Grove warns that the IT industry in the US could go the way of the steel industry. (And in fact is already well down that path.) "It would be a miracle if it didn't happen in the software and services industry,'' Grove said.

The points that Grove points to fight this trend include: boost funding for research and development at universities; adopt policies that attract the best workers from around the world. This is the part of the message most relevant for GT students. You are in the very good place to gain an education in the high value work that will continue to be done in the US.

On a personal note, I was recently on a two week trip to Armenia, on the other side of the Baltic sea, sharing borders with Iran and Turkey. There, the better jobs are software programming jobs. Even the Mathematics Institute in Yerevan rents out space to such a company, a move that is described as completely normal.

It is easy to see why, as the workers are still able to get a high quality education from the university system built in the Soviet era. And the costs are very low: A watermelon costs about 11 cents. A lovely meal for 6 at a resturant as little as $20.

On my flight in, I sat next to two software execs from Silicon Valley, flying in to check up on the Armenian employees. While there, I met a woman who was a C++ programer. Oh I said, who do you program for? The answer was the Army of the Peoples Republic of China! The impact of IT outsourcing are indeed very broad.

SoM support for Seminars

The School of Mathematics seeks to have a
strong and broadly based program of colloquium
speakers and research visitors.

To this end, the School has commited several
tens of thousands of dollars to support the colloquium
and seminar budgets. The seminar support has
engendered several new seminar series.

1. Hamiltonian Systems: P. Mucha, M. Symington, Y. Yi

2. Numerics and Dynamics: F. Bonetto, L. Dieci, Y. Liu

3. Wavelets: C. Heil, Y. Wang

4. PDEs: W. Gangbo, A. Sweich
5. Mathematical Physics: E. Carlen, M. Loss
This listing identifies the organizers but it is anticipated that a much broader spectrum of
SOM faculty will be participating on a regular basis.

Integers Conference at West Georgia

INTEGERS CONFERENCE 2003

On the Occasion of the 65th Birthday of Tom Brown 

October 31 – November 2, 2003 Carrollton, Georgia 

The Department of Mathematics at the State University of West Georgia is pleased to announce the Integers Conference 2003 in combinatorial number theory. The purpose of the conference is to bring together mathematicians, students, and others interested in combinatorics and number theory. We will also be honoring Professor Tom Brown, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, for his significant contributions to the field.  

Registration: There is no registration fee. However, all participants must register in advance due to limited seating. To do so, send an e-mail message to integers@westga.edu, no later than Monday, September 29, requesting your name be included in the list of registrants for the conference. You will receive a reply to your e-mail; if the reply states that you are registered, then this confirms your registration (we hope we are able to accommodate all who wish to attend). 

Speakers: Among the Plenary Speakers will be Ronald Graham (UC-San Diego), Carl Pomerance (Dartmouth), Melvyn Nathanson (Lehman College, CUNY) and Jaroslav Nesetril (Charles University, Prague). There will also be many Invited Papers; if you would like to present an invited paper, send the title and a .tex or .pdf file no later than Monday, September 29. We welcome talks from any of the mathematical subject areas covered by the journal Integers: Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory. Aside from the Plenary talks, all talks will be scheduled for 20-minute time slots. (Note: as there is a ceiling on the number of speakers we are able to accomodate, we recommend you get this information in as soon as possible – requests to present papers will be honored in the order in which they are received; we cannot guarantee that all requests to present papers will be honored).

Proceedings: Papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication in a special issue of Integers: Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory. Completed texts must be submitted by January 8th, 2004, and will be handled according to the journal’s usual refereeing process. 

Schedule: The conference talks will take place within the hours of Friday, October 31, 9:30AM-5:30PM; Saturday, November 1, 9:00AM – 5:30PM; and Sunday, November 2, 9:00AM-2PM. A more detailed scheduled will be sent out later. 

Location and Parking: The conference will be held on the campus of the State University of West Georgia in Carrollton. The city of Carrollton is about 45 miles west of Atlanta. Those coming by air should fly to Atlanta. Directions and maps of the campus will be sent to all those who register. On campus parking passes will be provided to those needing one. A block of rooms will be set aside for a special reduced rate at the Holiday Inn Express in Carrollton. Please let us know as soon as possible if you wish to be counted in this block. 

More Information: Please direct your questions to Bruce Landman, via e-mail (landman@westga.edu). Please keep in mind that this is only an initial announcement, and that more detailed announcements and information will be sent out later.  

Prasad Tetali addresses Mental Health Concerns

In this semester's first Departmental Colloquium, Professor Prasad Tetali spoke as a layman about mental health concerns. He is motivated by his belief that knowledge about mental health and mood disorders, like depression, and bipolar disoder, should be more broadly known.

These can be extremely painful to that person and those who love them. At the same time the diagnosi, treatment and understanding of these disorders has never been better. There is no reason not to seek help!

Professor Tetali has the slides from his talk at a web page that is a jumping off place to find out more about mental health.

Loraine Ruff and Celia Grams Retire

The Scool ofMath says goodbye, and a long healthy retirement to to Secretaries,
Lorraine Ruff, who worked for the Center for Dyanmical Systems, and Celia Grams.

About
50 Pictures of their Reception are up for your viewing.

Constructive Functions Conference, November 2004.

This conference, honoring the 60th birthday of Ed Saff, will be an international conference covering all aspects of constructive function theory, potential theory and approximation theory. Ed Saff has played a key role in building scientific cooperation between mathematicians of many nations. Accordingly, the conference aims to attract mathematicians from all around the world, especially young graduate mathematicians and graduate students.

The confernece will be November 7-9, 2004.

Two GT Professors, Jeff Geronimo and Doron Lubinsky are on the organizing Committee.
The Conference Web Site is up and accepting registration.

NSF/CBMS in Analysis At Georgia Tech May 2004

                         Objectives

 The subject area is in the area of multilinear singular integrals,

 and some related maximal operators, with a particular emphasis on those

 with some invariance properties with respect to modulations.

 This is a new branch of Harmonic Analysis that has arisen within the last

 decade.

 A distinguishing feature  of this area is the use of wave packet

 techniques which have  roots going back to seminal  work on convergence

 of Fourier series by L. Carleson, and C. Fefferman about 40

 years ago. Yet the use of these techniques was hardly felt outside the

 subject of convergence of  Fourier series until 1995.   It was then that

 M. Lacey and C. Thiele used related techniques to a long standing

 conjecture of A. Calderon concerning  the bilinear

 Hilbert transform.

 It is now understood, through the efforts of a sizable number of

 mathematicans, that these techniques are crucial to the study a wide

 class of multilinear singular integral and maximal operators. The timing

 of these lectures occurs when there is already a body of sophisticated

 results, from  which are emerging signs of a beautiful theory.

 Connections to other fields of mathematics are at the horizon.

 Professor Thiele's will present this recent development in a series of

 lectures and there will be a few additional lectures by leading researchers

 in the subject.

Google is a Calculator too

Google has added a calculator to its search functions. There are some
obvious formulas such as

e^(pi) . Note: use parentheses, not braces! But it won't solve quadratics.

You can find the radius of the earth in furlongs

And then find out furlongs in light years

You can convert liter in teaspoons.

And Google also knows the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

New Faculty Arriving at GT

There are quite a few new track faculty joining the School of Mathematics
this fall. They are:

Igor Belgradek (geometry, topology) was a postdoc at Caltech.

Ernie Croot (number theory) was a postdoc at Berkeley.

Plamen Iliev (math physics) was a postdoc at Berkeley.

Heinrich Matzinger (probability) was a postdoc at Beibelfeld Germany.

Ronghua Pan (non linear pdes) was a postdoc at the University of Michigan.

Anurag Singh (algebra) has held postdoctoral positions at the Univeristy of Utah and MSRI in Berkeley.

Hao Min Zhou (numerical analysis) was a postdoc at Caltech.

In the Postdoc category, w
Thiery Zell (computational algebra) comes from France.

Four new VIGRE postdocs join us:

Dan Fox (geometry/topology) from the University of Seattle.

Jason Metcalfe (non linear pdes) from Johns Hopkins University

Tomasso Pacini (geometry) from University of Pisa.

Mark Demers (dynamics) from Courant Institute.

In other categories, we have several people either visiting short term, or
continuing their stay at Georgia Tech. Among them, Victor Abreu from
CIMAT in Mexico returns for another visit.

Welcome to all.

Three Geometry Seminars

This fall there will be the following seminars with geometric themes:
- the Geometry/Topology Seminar meeting on Mondays, time to be
specified (run jointly by Professsor Stavros Garoufalidis and VIGRE post-doc Tommaso Pacini)
- a working seminar (run jointly by Professor Landsberg and VIGRE post-doc Daniel Fox) on G-structures in algebraic geometry. Meeting day and time to be determined.

- The Informal Geometry Seminar Professor Landsberg will continue to meet at Fridays at 3pm

Every effort will be made to have the first 45 minutes of the talk (before the break) accesible to graduate students, after which those bored and/or
lost can leave gracefully. Already booked are E. Lerman (symplectic geometry, UIUC) 8/22, L. Garcia 8/29 (Virgina Tech, Bayesian networks - this talk may
be of interest to those in graph theory, computer science and bioinformatics), and X. Rong (Rutgers, Riemannian geometry). Additional suggestions for
speakers are most welcome. Abstracts of talks are at the web site above.


Email Professor Landsberg to get on the distribution lists for these seminars.

Mason Porter Takes Over Research Horizons

The Research Horizons/Pre Colloquium talks were initiated by Professor Erdos
two years ago. These are talks by GT faculty or visitors that are a survey of
a research interest of the faculty, or an introduction to that week's colloquium.

Professor Symington has been running the seminar for three semesters, and
now Mason Porter, in his second year as a VIGRE postdoc, will take over the duties. Mason has experience running a similar seminar at Cornell, where he was a grad student.

See the
most recent schedule.

This is a fine idea, and has been used at many places before it was taken up at Georgia Tech. The process of running one is much harder than it looks, as Professor Symington found out. The talks given in the seminar over the past three semesters are mostly GT faculty. Margaret Symington writes:

Overall I was pleased with the seminar last year: the talks were
typically great
and the attendence was reasonable -- typically between 3
and 7 students with a couple of washouts (no students) and a couple of
watersheds (many students), occasional undergraduates, and ususally
several postdocs and faculty.

As a postdoc, Mason may be in a better position than I was to
- take the "seminar pulse" of the students and figure out how best to
tailor the seminar to meet their needs and interests
- serve as a role model for asking questions in a talk
- keep the speaker at the appropriate level.

Thanks to all who offered to speak last year. Please keep volunteering
and please do talk with students about what seminars they should attend
given their interests -- both on a general level as well as letting them
know when there is a particular speaker that might be of particular
interest. This is crucial information that they really need to hear from
us.

best,
Margaret

IMA Combinatorics Pics

The IMA program in Combinatorics program, held at Georgia Tech, concluded last friday. Over a three week period, five projfessors gave courses on reserach topics in combinatorics to graduate students from all over the US. The principal lecturers were

• Graham Brightwell
• András Gyárfás
• Prasad Tetali
• Robin Thomas
• William T. Trotter

  There are some fun pics of the program up at different sites

  
  
  

  A tagged version of the Group Photo above has been put together by Frank Fiedler of University of Deleware. He also has plenty of captioned photos of the Workshop, participants, and some of the sites of Atlanta. And yet more photos here.

  Posted by lacey at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

IMA Program: Combinatorics and its Applications

The program runs July 14 to August 1, and more information is available.

White Collar Jobs Moving Overseas

Manufacturing jobs have been moving overseas for years. Recently, the
trend of White Collar jobs doing the same has been accelerating. These include
software and circuit design jobs, but also include architecture jobs. (You don't have to be in Atlanta to understand the local building codes.)

Today, there is an article in the NYT about this issue, concerning IBM.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html?pagewanted=all&position=

.
(login required. You can use "gtmath" with password "Atlanta")

I.B.M. Explores Shift of White-Collar Jobs Overseas

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

With American corporations under increasing pressure to cut costs and build global supply networks, two senior I.B.M. officials told their corporate colleagues around the world in a recorded conference call that I.B.M. needed to accelerate its efforts to move white-collar, often high-paying, jobs overseas even though that might create a backlash among politicians and its own employees.

(login required. Use "gtmath" with password "Atlanta")

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/technology/22JOBS.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Gallery of Physics of Fluids

Also at the NYT, I learned of the annual artistic competition at the journal "Physics of Fluids."

The journal has an annual competition to create beautiful and artistic images of fluid motion.
There are 15 years of archives at the web sites above. And each year there are about 10-15 winners, which can be photos, simulations, and movies of either.

Our own Peter Mucha submits pics to the competition, but there is some bias against simulations, as they can be very easy to compute.

Peter writes "Many of my favorite Gallery pictures are from John Bush in Math at
MIT. He has openly made it his goal to get a winner in the contest
every single year, and has been on a streak of 4 or 5 years in a row.
One of his earlier years he was doing this, he had two beautiful
submissions with only one winner, and we all concluded that there must
be an unwritten rule (or very strong bias at a minimum) against giving
two simultaneous "winner" ribbons to the same group or person. So he
keeps a backlog of potential winning photographs in his lab, and
submits only one set each year."

Indeed, check out Bush's Fish Bones, from 2002, or from 2001, his Polygons .

I also like the Sound of Snapping Shrimp. The snap comes from a popping bubble.

Savants in the NYT

This past week, the NYT has had three articles of interest to the Math crowd.

The first is an article about one Professor Alan Synder
of the University of Sydney Australia. The good professor hooks up people
to a magnetic head dress. And the a few minutes later, these people exhibit
a remarkable improvement at skills like drawing, and mentally identifying primes.

The article compares these mental tricks to savants, like Dustin Hoffman's "Rainman." Savants can be denigrated as people who are amazingly good at things most people do not want to do. But savants do exhibit a range of remarkable skills, from music to arts. Russell Lyons pointed me to
the web site hosted by the Wisconsin Medical Society with extensive information about savants.