Dr. (Frances) Bill Flynn

Neuroscientist & Professor                          

Dept of Zoology and Physiology

UW

November 30
3:10 - 4:00

Ross 247 

This is Your Brain on
Math

Dr. Flynn plans an informal talk about applications, past and future, of math to neurosciences, and the opportunities.  HW:  visit the Blue Brain Project site.

Movie Nights!

Upcoming!   Math Movie Nights During Finals

On Monday, December 5th, 2011 we will be showing the movie Knowing staring Nicolas Cage. It will be shown in the Math Lab at 7:00 p.m.  Watch the trailer, and then come take a break!

"A teacher opens a time capsule that has been dug up at his son's elementary school; in it are some chilling predictions -- some that have already occurred and others that are about to -- that lead him to believe his family plays a role in the events that are about to unfold. "

~imdb.com

On Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 we suggest the movie Infinity staring Matthrew Broderick and Arlene Arquette.  It can be viewed on Hulu for free (with some commercials) any time.  Watch the movie at home.


"(This movie is) about the early years of Richard Feynman, up to the completion of the Manhattan Project, and the death of his wife.  What I like particularly is a scene in NYC's Chinatown where [Feynman] races a herbalist using an abacus to approximate the cube root of 1729.1 (I think). [Feynman] uses a linear approximation, which he explains clearly and properly to his fiance.  This is the only movie of my experience that actually presents the math correctly - well except for "Stand and Deliver". 


  Math Fiction -- maintained by Alex Kasman

On Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 we will be showing the seldom-seen Hitchcock movie Torn Curtain staring Paul Newton and Julie Andrews. It will be shown in the Math Lab at 7:00 p.m.  Watch the trailer, and then come take a break!

"Professor Armstrong (Paul Newman) pretends to defect to the other side of the iron curtain to learn of the secret "star wars"-like defense plan discovered by the brilliant Dr. Lindt. Fiancee (Julie Andrews) follows him against his wishes. In the only mathematical scene in the movie, Armstrong tricks Lindt into revealing his results by writing irritatingly incorrect formulas on the blackboard. Lindt cannot stop himself from correcting Armstrong's errors, thereby revealing the secret portions of his research. Though the math is bogus (looks like classical mechanics of oscillators from the little bit I saw) the film does convey the idea that the formulas are important, are the subject of research, and that the research is published in journals."

On Thursday, December 8th, 2011 we will be showing the (unexpected) Tina Fey movie Mean Girls staring Lindsay Lohan.  It will be shown in the Math Lab at 7:00 p.m.  Watch the trailer, and then come take a break!

"I found all of the math in this film to be on point. I also liked how the social problems of teenagers adjusting to new settings was presented. I was glad to see "Math" win in the end. Her performance at the math competition was the highlight of the movie for me. Another good scene is when Lohan's character accepts tutoring for the popular boy even thought she does not need it. I have had and seen students just like this in my own math classes".

 Math Fiction -- maintained by Alex Kasman

On Friday, December 9th, 2011 we will be showing the intelligent Tom Stoppard movie Enigma staring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet.  Mick Jagger is one of its producers.  It will be shown in the Math Lab at 7:00 p.m. Watch the trailer and then come relax with friends.


 

Past Movies!

On November 14th, 2011 we showed the movie Codebreaker about Alan Turing.

On September 26th, 2011 we showed The Professor and His Beloved Equation.





"This is the story between single mother housekeeper and mathematics professor,who has a brain damage. "





~imdb.com

Past Talks

On September 9th, 2011 one of our own professors, Craig Douglas, came and gave a talk on shale oil. A youtube video on this process can be found at https://uwmail.uwyo.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=8d34de12fbda4e7abe2e906462faa00f&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.youtube.com%2fv%2fnvnnBcxhzNA

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On October 28th, 2011 Mauricio Klitz came and gave a talk on ___.

"I thought his talk was informative and interesting. I got a good touch that ranged from math to biology to philosophy, and I appreciated that a lot. It struck me that he was a true Renaissance man. He managed to tie a lot of ideas together and give a picture of just how complex the job is of anyone who has to deal with scientists from many fields, the government, academia, the public and has to rectify those differing views in a manner that is satisfying for everyone." ~Spencer Buda

Also a big thanks to Mark and Courtney for their wonderful job at the Halloween table this year!

2011 - 2012

Each academic year begins in the same way for the Math Club:

(1)  One of the officers agrees to be club President.

(2)  We have an organizational meeting.

(3)  We participate in the Campus Activity Center (CAC) club day.

(4)  The club president goes to the CAC training and completes paperwork to renew as a Recognized Student Organization (RSO).
(5) The officers and faculty sponsor start planning events we hope members will enjoy.

2011-2012 has started well. Our new officers are:


President:                       Mark Givens
V. President:                   Aylin Marquez
Historian/Blog Master:    Josh McConnell
Treasurer:                       Drew Hauser


We decided to continue with the Math Movies and hosted the first on Aug 29.  Since our copy had no english-language subtitles, we'll reshow The Professor and his Beloved Equation on Sept 26.  Click here for a video review. 

We hosted a first meeting on Friday, Aug 26 where after a few introductions, played board games.  We meet every other Friday at 3:10 in Ross Hall 247.  Pizza is served. 

March 4 --- Hands on Workshop led by Barbara Gardner


Barbara founded the Boulder Folders, an informal group that meets three times a month at two public libraries in Boulder.  Some of the Club members met Barbara at the October birthday party of Martin Gardner held in Boulder.  We spent a couple of wonderful hours doing origami under her supervision.  In December 2010, I took my nephew to a Boulder Folder morning and he was impressed!  Please show Barbara that we appreciate her gracious offer to bring her books and papers and skills to us!


We'll meet in the Math Lab, Friday March 4, 3:10!!!  Bring your friends.  Bring a young person.  If you can't join us, perhaps you will be interested in one of the groups that Barbara supports:  Origami USA.  On their website they explain their mission:

"...to share the joy and appreciation of paperfolding, preserve its history, nurture its growth, bring people together and encourage community among paperfolders."  

The site goes on to say that  "Origami is alive and well in America. Thanks to the dedication of Lillian Oppenheimer, founder of The Origami Center of America, for over 30 years there has been a place to share origami experiences and purchase origami supplies .... There are over 1600 members in 49 states and 19 countries and there are local-area OrigamiUSA groups in cities all over the United States and Canada".  Perhaps one of our majors could be the next person to join from WY.

Friday 2/11 Professor Felipe Pereira -- Porous Media Flows

On Thurs, Feb. 10 we have our 2nd Latex get together in the Union Gardens. See the previous post for details.

On Friday, Feb. 11 at 3:10 in Ross Hall 247

UW's Prof. Felipe Pereira will share with us cutting-edge findings in this area of mathematics that's changing so fast.  He's calling his presentation

                                         Exact Upscaling for Porous Media Flows

Prof.Pereira will open a window on this exciting area of investigation that Wyoming has declared a State priority.  He'll also answer questions about undergraduate research in his field.
****************************************************************************************************
 "Models for flows in porous media are known in the scale of a few centimeters (the lab scale) and problems of interest, such as injection of CO2 in saline aquifers and oil recovery, have to be solved in the scale of a few miles (the field scale). Consequently, scientifically correct discretizations of the  governing equations require fine computational grids which, in turn, lead to huge computational problems.

A classical problem in the area of flows in porous media flows, known as upscaling, consists of finding modified equations that would allow for coarse grid solutions of the fine scale problems. Over the years several ad-hoc procedures have been developed aiming at reducing the computational cost of the solution of subsurface flow problems; they may produce serious errors in the numerical solution.

We will reformulate the upscaling problem in the context of multiscale mixed finite elements. We will indicate the correct procedure to solve the problems at hand in coarse grids and discuss its (high) computational cost. New approximate procedures, that reduce drastically the computational cost, will also be indicated.

This is joint work with A. Francisco, V. Ginting and J. Rigelo."

February Line-Up of Events

February 10th is the 1st meeting of our Latex Support Group.

Someone mentioned it would be nice to meet more informally sometimes, another mentioned the (Union) Gardens, and then we had a good turn-out for our Latex workshop.  We figure that there are computers all around there, and that to get going we might have a "themed" meeting.  Since Noll & Tim are getting help from Professor Chanyoung Shader about typing proofs, we'll use this as our first theme.  If you know nothing about Latex yet, then come and someone will volunteer to get you started.  You might just come to share in a beer.  See you a little after 5:30?  We'll have a banner to identify ourselves :-)

On Feb 11