My student's assignment for today involved some rather tedious calculations. She handed me the write-up, and I scanned it - one of those situations where it's easier to verify that an answer is correct than to actually get the answer. No problems ( Read more... )

I met with my student again today. I had planted an Easter egg in the problem set I gave her; two superficially quite different questions had closely related answers, and this has implications. She found the egg, interpreted it correctly, and thought that it was exciting.

That's the spirit!

My new Masters' student is an assiduous worker - but I knew that already ( Read more... )

Earlier this year, I commented that it had been a while since I had a Masters' student ( Read more... )

This fall I'm scheduled to teach three courses, one from each of the great branches of mathematics: algebra (Introduction to Algebraic Structures), geometry (Foundations for Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Geometry), and analysis (Real Analysis I). This is the first time, I think, that I've been assigned that range ( Read more... )

A week or two before a colloquium talk, posters go up announcing it. They include a brief description of the talk, usually a rather dry abstract ( Read more... )

Almost all of the grading's done; one class, four students, remains. I've had messages from one student concerned about a low grade, and one from a student dubious of a high grade. Both seem to have accepted my explanations ( Read more... )

Next semester, I am scheduled to teach Math 437, on differential geometry. It's one of my favorite classes to teach, second only to Math 400 (history of modern math). Unfortunately, a 400-level (senior) class requires a minimum of ten students to avoid being cancelled. I've been watching the enrollment, which has been hovering in the mid-single ( Read more... )

We had a bit of fun in yesterday's geometry class. We were finishing up the section on triangle geometry, with the capstone being the proof of the existence of the Nine Point Circle. That done, I began showing them some odds and ends about the various points we'd been discussing - the circumcenter O, the orthocenter H, and the nine-point center N. ( Read more... )

Someone on Facebook posted a quote from Stephen Hawking on the nature of intelligence, and it brought to mind something I tell my math students, prior to the first test in each class. I tell them that I test for three things: factual knowledge (in this context, the statements of definitions and theorems - and I tell them which they need to know), ( Read more... )