NES/MAA REGIONAL DINNER MEETINGS - Spring 2003

The Northeastern Section Regional Dinner Meeting series has proven to be both popular and stimulating. Therefore, once again, the NES/MAA offers you the opportunity to spend an interesting and enjoyable evening with others involved in mathematics and mathematics education. There will be additional dinner meetings scheduled.  Information about dinner meetings will be posted as it becomes available Feel free to attend as many of the dinner meetings as you wish.  Please send a separate reservation form for each person attending and for each dinner meeting that you wish to attend.  Reservations must be made in writing by the respective deadlines since exact numbers must be given in advance.  The registration forms are available on-line.  However, the form must be mailed to the appropriate coordinator.  On-line registration and e-mail registration are not available.

Please contact Lucy Kimball, Mathematical Sciences Department, Bentley College, Waltham, MA 02154, (781) 891-2467, lkimball@bentley.edu , Coordinator of the Regional Dinner Meetings, for information regarding hosting a dinner meeting for your region in Spring 2003 or Spring 2004 or for more information about the dinner meetings program.
 

Connecticut Region -- Wednesday, April 30, 2003

Speaker:  Dr. C. Edward Sandifer, Western Connecticut State University
Title:  "Stopping Between the Integers - How Euler Interpolated Partial Sums"
Leonhard Euler, a contemporary of Benjamin Franklin, was the 18th
Century's greatest mathematician and scientist.  His brilliance is best
appreciated, like great art, by examining some of its details.  It is easy to
understand what it means to sum the first five terms of the harmonic series:

1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5.

What would it mean to sum the first one and a half terms?  Euler's answer led
him to discover the Gamma function, and also turned out to be a key step in
his first great breakthrough, the solution of the Basel Problem.


Date:  Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Sacred Heart University, Fairfield CT

Schedule:
     6:30 p.m.   Wine, cheese, and beer
     7:00 p.m.   Dinner

Where:  Pitt Center Boardroom - located on the second floor of the Pitt Athletic Center.

Dinner:   Buffet dinner including chicken, pasta, vegetables, etc.  Also, a choice of desserts.

Cost:  $25.00

Registration Deadline:  April 15, 2003.

Registration form (to be mailed in)

Contact:  Jason Molitierno, MolitiernoJ@sacredheart.edu
                phone: (203) 396-8324

Directions to Sacred Heart University (Also see campus map for related Fairfield map.)
Campus map

NES/MAA Homepage | Eastern Massachusetts  | Massachusetts Region  |  Rhode Island

NES/MAA Dinner Meeting at Framingham State College in Memory of Kenneth J. Preskenis
Thursday, April 17, 2003

Kenneth J. Preskenis:  A dedicated teacher committed to excellence, a serious scholar, a popular son of South Boston, and a gentleman Ken Preskenis died on Thanksgiving Day, 2002. Ken had a passion for mathematics and for sharing that love with others, especially youngsters. A relentless pursuer of knowledge, he was a regular participant at the weekly seminars in functional analysis at Brown University where he earned his M.S. in 1967 and his Ph.D. in 1971. He joined the faculty at Framingham State College in 1977 after teaching at Newton College and then at Boston College for a total of 14 years. Ken was the author of a number of articles in analysis and mathematics education, a regular attendee and contributor at MAA/NES meetings, a South Boston Athletic Hall of Famer, and a recipient of the Michael E. Glynn South Boston Community Service Award.

Please join us as we honor the memory of our dear friend and colleague Kenneth J. Preskenis.

Speakers: Dr. Andrew Browder, Brown University, and Dr. John Wermer, Brown University
 

Date: Thursday, April 17, 2003
Location: D. Justin McCarthy College Center, Framingham State College
 

Schedule:
 5:45 -6:30 pm   Reception with cash bar, McCarthy's, Second Floor of D. Justin McCarthy
                         College Center
 6:30-8:00 pm    Dinner, Forum, Second Floor of D. Justin McCarthy College Center
 8:00-9:00 pm    Speakers, Fireplace Lounge, Third Floor of D. Justin McCarthy College Center

Dinner: Buffet dinner including tossed salad with Ranch and Vinaigrette dressings, Top Round Au Jus,
Chicken Breast, Pasta with Roasted Vegetables, Roasted Red Bliss Potatoes, Fresh Squash
Medley with Garlic and Basil, an assortment of desserts, warm dinner rolls with butter, water,
coffee, decaf, and hot tea.

Cost: $28.00   (Checks should be made payable to Framingham State College Mathematics Department.)

Registration Deadline: Thursday, April 3, 2003

Registration form:  HTML format   PDF format   MS Word

Contact : Sarah L. Mabrouk (smabrouk@frc.mass.edu)
                 (508)626-4785

Directions to Framingham State College
Campus Map  (The Justin McCarthy Center is #7 on the campus map.)
A parking pass will be mailed to you when you register.

NES/MAA Homepage |  Connecticut Region   | Massachusetts Region  |  Rhode Island

Massachusetts Region - Wednesday, April 2, 2003

The Tenth Leonard C. Sulski Memorial Lecture:
 Kathleen Shannon, Salisbury University
"Pascal's Triangle, Cellular Automata and Serendipity:  A Mathematical Tale"
The talk will outline the development of the PascGalois Project.  Its origins are in an exercise using Pascal's Triangle and modular arithmetic.  Colors are assigned to the numbers 0,1,...,n-1, and Pascal's Triangle modulo n is drawn.  The patterns in the triangle are then related to the properties of the cyclic group  Z_n.  The process of drawing the triangles is then generalized to non-cyclic and non-abelian groups and the new patterns are examined in light of the properties of these groups.   The images can help develop visual and intuitive understanding of concepts such as subgroup closure and quotient groups.  Finally we view Pascal's Triangle as a one-dimensional cellular automata and generalize to more general initial conditions and two dimensional automata.  Many of the investigations in this project have been undertaken with students in undergraduate research projects and one outgrowth of the project has been the development of a set of visualization exercises to supplement the standard undergraduate course in abstract algebra. The PascGalois Project is supported by the National Science Foundation and by the Richard A. Henson endowment for the School of Science at Salisbury University.
Wednesday, April 2, 2003
College of the Holy Cross,  Worcester, Massachusetts

Schedule:
        5:30 pm    Cash bar, Hogan Campus Center, Suite B
        6:15 pm    Dinner, Hogan Campus Center, Suite B
        8:00 pm    Presentation in Hogan Campus Center, Room 519

Choice of Entree:      Broiled Boston Scrod or Chicken Marsala.   (Please indicate your choice when you send your check.)
Cost:   $15.00

Registration form (to be mailed in)

Contact: Thomas Cecil (cecil@mathcs.holycross.edu)
                  (508) 793-2719

Registration Deadline: March 24, 2003

Directions to Holy Cross
Campus Map  (Hogan Campus Center is #7 on the map.)

NES/MAA Homepage |  Connecticut Region  |  Eastern Massachusetts  |  Rhode Island
 

Rhode Island Region – Thursday, April 24, 2003

Speaker: Dr. Bruce Burdick, Roger Williams University
Title: "Mathematicians Square Off---Latin American Voices in the Worldwide Comet Debate of the 1680's."
Abstract: The skies of the seventeenth century were rich in spectacular comets, and each  new one brought about a host of printed responses, mostly in Europe and to a  lesser extent in the Americas.  This phenomenon peaked after the great comet  of 1680/81.  Two individuals, Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora and Francisco Eusebio Kino, were among the writers who argued in print about this comet.   Both were highly trained mathematicians and published their work in Mexico.  Kino used Euclid's geometry to support his claim that the comet was a warning of dire events to come; Siguenza replied with a more modern point of view and made much use of spherical trigonometry in his work.  Both of these figures  are well known for their other accomplishments, but these works have not always been given due attention, either in lists of mathematical works in the Americas or in the context of the worldwide comet debate.

Biography:  Dr Burdick did his undergraduate work in mathematics and philosophy at Heidelberg College, Tiffin, Ohio.  His Masters and Ph.D. are from the Ohio State University.  He has been teaching at Roger Williams University since 1990.  He spends part of each summer researching in Latin America


Date:   Thursday,  April 24, 2003
Location:  Providence College, Providence RI
               Glass Room, Slavin Center

Schedule:
     Dinner at 7:00pm
     Talk at 8:00pm

Menu: Buffet including Salad, Pasta, Choice of marinara sauce or Alfredo sauce, meatballs, dessert, beverages.

Cost:  $14.00.  Make check payable to Providence College.

Registration Deadline: April 18

Contact: Frank Ford; E-mail: fpford@providence.edu
               Phone: (401) 865-2334 or (401) 865-2635

Registration Form
          Send check to: Frank Ford
                                 Dept of Mathematics/Computer Science
                                 Providence College
                                 Providence, RI 02918

Directions to Providence College
Campus Map
 

NES/MAA Homepage |  Connecticut Region  |  Eastern Massachusetts   | Massachusetts Region

E-mail: gingrichr1@southernct.edu
URL: http://www.SouthernCT.edu/organizations/nesmaa//RegDinnerMts2003.html
Revised: March 20, 2003

"The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author and have not been reviewed or approved by Southern Connecticut State University."