Over six years ago, I wrote a post on ways in which mathematics (at a research level) and art (at a gallery level) can intersect today. The problem is that in our enlightened world, the work of the mathematician and the visual artist are not only viewed as incompatible, but… Continue reading »
Join us Wednesday, March 18th for a day of activities celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Williams Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest academic honor society. Events begin at 10am in Lawrence 231 where William Arms of Cornell, our distinguished visiting scholar, will give a talk in… Continue reading »
In Math 12, The Mathematics of Lego Bricks, while we used lego bricks as a springboard to talk about a lot of interesting math (the lectures and additional comments are available here), the main goal was to successfully build the… Continue reading »
I love baking. More importantly, I love sweet things. However, I can’t and/or shouldn’t eat a full batch of cookies, bars, or brownies. I bake for my students instead. I use homemade sweet treats as prizes for going above and beyond the course work. This semester in my Stat 101 class,… Continue reading »
Today is Mountain Day, a great long-standing tradition of Williams, and it causes me to reflect on my first year here at Williams. My time before coming here had been spent primarily in large research institutions, but I knew that I wanted to end up at a small liberal arts… Continue reading »
The purpose of this column is to talk about the weekly math puzzle night dinners run by myself and Professor Palsson, and to invite you to join us for this and other related activities. Here’s a quick summary of problem solving activities here; for more information or to be… Continue reading »
Professor and Chair Stewart Johnson announced this year’s Math/Stats prizes at the annual gala Majors’ Dinner at the Williams Inn Tuesday evening, May 13, 2014 (photos below): ROSENBURG PRIZE for excellent senior: Ilya Amburg and Vu Le. GOLDBERG AWARD for best colloquium: Nina Horowitz “The Mathematics Behind Playing Hard to Get“… Continue reading »
The hundreds of attendants at the 2014 Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, this year at Marist College, included seven speakers from Williams: The Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Sequence by Megumi Asada Benford’s Law and the Fibonacci Numbers by John Bihn Isoperimetric Regions in the Plane and… Continue reading »
According to the latest ranking by CareerCast.com, the best four jobs of 2014 are: 1. Mathematician. 2. Tenured professor. 3. Statistician. 4. Actuary. (The worst was lumberjack.)… Continue reading »
The American Mathematical Society has recognized the Williams College Department of Mathematics and Statistics as the 2014 Exemplary Program, as announced and described in the May Notices. Also see the College press release, the Williams Record, and our own story. Continue reading »