Undergraduate Math Conference
Saturday, April 13, 2013
2013 Invited Speaker - Professor Laura Taalman
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Biography: Laura Taalman is a Professor of Mathematics at James Madison University. She received her Ph.D in mathematics from Duke University and her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago. Her research includes singular algebraic geometry, knot theory, and the mathematics of puzzles. Dr. Taalman is Co-Director of the annual Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics (SUMS) Conference at James Madison University, and a recipient of both the Trevor Evans Award and the Alder Award from the Mathematical Association of America. She has also co-authored a book on the mathematics of Sudoku, four books of Sudoku variation puzzles, and a new three-semester Calculus book that came out earlier this year. Title: Patterns, Proofs, and Purity Abstract: What is known and what is not? How much of what is not known is known, and how can we find out? Can we use computers to investigate what isn’t known? Is it okay to use computers to prove what isn’t known? With the rise of undergraduate research in mathematics comes a need for elementary unsolved problems that students can pursue. Modern technology can help fill this need and support exploratory, investigative mathematics, even for those of us that are old-school mathematical purists at heart. In this talk we’ll stumble through some of what is known and not known about cellular automata, primes, Tetris, Sudoku, and knots. |
2012 Undergraduate Math Conference 2011 Undergraduate Math 2010 Undergraduate Math Conference 2008 Undergraduate Math Conference 2007 Undergraduate Math Conference Ayres Hall is home to the UT Department of Mathematics. |
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This conference is sponsored by the
University of Tennessee Mathematics Department.