Blog

“The Magic of Math” by Art Benjamin

by Gabriel Ngwe ’17 “The Magic of Math” is a book on general mathematics which aims to reveal the underlying magic. What lies behind “The Magic of Math” is the same thing that lies behind magic in general: manipulation and redirection. These themes underlie the book, and Arthur… Continue reading »

Egyptian Fractions

by Nam Nguyen ‘19 Numbers and basic computation appeared in Ancient Egypt as early as 2700 BCE. But you might not know that Ancient Egyptians demanded that every fraction have 1 in the numerator. They wanted to write any rational between 0 and 1 as a sum of such “unit”… Continue reading »

Interview with Julie Blackwood

by John Herrera ’17 How did you get interested in applying mathematics to ecology? When I was applying for college, I had to apply to a major before I went to college. I was looking through the majors, and I saw applied math, and I thought, “Not bad. Continue reading »

Nebraska Conference for Women

by Sarah Fleming Over Dead Week, Nina Pande and I attended the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We had a wonderful experience, and we are grateful to the Clare Boothe Luce Program and the Math Department for providing us with the… Continue reading »

Interview of Leo Goldmakher on Grad Student Blog

Stephen Ai ’18 interview of Professor Goldmakher on AMS Graduate Student Blog: Goldmakher tells Ai about the importance of creativity and ownership in mathematics. How did you get interested in mathematics?  When I was in 7th grade, in Boston, I enrolled in an experimental program called The Math Circle,… Continue reading »

Interview with Janice Lee ’17

by John Herrera Lee, a junior math major at Williams College, engages in problem solving activities. How did you get interested in mathematics? I took a lot of math courses growing up. There was a positive feedback loop in the classes that I have taken. Taking… Continue reading »

Lightning Talks by Thesis Students

The AMS Williams Student Chapter and SMASAB joined forces yesterday in organizing a special event called Lightning Talks by Thesis Students. This event, which was exclusively for students, gave attendees an opportunity to listen to brief thesis presentations and learn about some cool new math problems. Listen to Greg… Continue reading »

Interview with Bernhard Klingenberg

By Nam Nguyen ’19 Klingenberg (right) tells Nguyen about his recently published textbook, “Statistics: The Art and Science of Learning from Data.” When did you discover your passion for mathematics? I was really bad at math in middle school. In 11… Continue reading »

Interview with Alejandro Sarria

by David Ariyibi ’19 Sarria explains to Ariyibi his goal of finding a mathematical link to the physical properties of pressure in fluids. What’s your favorite part of math? I work in nonlinear partial differential equations, and the main… Continue reading »

Joint Mathematics Meetings 2016

The 2016 Joint Mathematics Meetings, the largest mathematics meeting in the world, took place on January 6-9, 2016 in Seattle, WA. Prof. Satyan Devadoss received the Haimo national teaching award. Sarah Tammen of our 2014 SMALL undergraduate research Geometry Group was named Schafer Prize runner-up. Outstanding poster recognition went to Nina… Continue reading »