Calendar of Events
Calendar of Events
Fall 2009 Events
Department Seminar
Tuesday, September. 22
Kelvin Mischo
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Prof. Noah Keiserman, Bowdoin College
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Scott Taylor
Reception in Searles 214 at 4:15 PM
Lectures in Searles 217 at 4:15 PM
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Prof. Carrie Diaz Eaton, University of Tennessee
A Mathematical Model of Mutualism and Co-evolution
Mutualists are individuals, populations or species that benefit each other. One example of a well studied mutualism is that of the figs and fig-wasps, a system which boasts an estimated 750 fig tree species and 1300 fig wasp species. How does the interaction between mutualists affect their co-evolution? I introduce a difference equation model describing the change in allege frequencies at three diallelic loci in plant and pollinator and study it using both analytical and numerical results. I then generalize the model to account for asynchronous flowering populations as seen in figs, and discuss the evolutionary implications of the results. In particular, I focus on how one might re-interpret expected associations between the phylogenetic trees of mutualists.
Reception in Searles 214 at 4:15 PM
Lectures in Searles 217 at 4:15 PM
Student Seminar Series
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 12:10-12:40pm
Prof. Michael King, Bowdoin College
"Patterns in Primes"
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 12:10-12:40pm
Prof. Adam Levy, Bowdoin College
"Optimization for Dummies"
Monday, Oct. 19, 7:30-8:30pm
Searles 315
Dr. Lawren Smithline, Institute for Defense Analyses
"A Cryptic Letter to Thomas Jefferson"
On Christmas Day, 1801, Thomas Jefferson received a letter from University of Pennsylvania professor Robert Patterson. The last page of the letter was written using a cipher Patterson was proposing for all future confidential presidential communications. Patterson withheld the key to its decryption, writing,
"I may safely defy the united ingenuity
of the whole human race to decypher [such writing]
to the end of time."
It remained unsolved until last year. Using methods from mathematical biology, computer science, statistics, and mathematics, Lawren Smithline, a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton, New Jersey, broke the code. The lecture is sponsored in part by the Computer Science, Government, and Mathematics Departments, as well as the Lecture and Concerts Committee.
If you would like to try and crack the code yourself, the cipher manuscript is available from the Library of Congress at:
http://memory.loc.gov/master/mss/mtj/mtj1/025/0300/0304.jpg
Dr. Smithline's work is described in a recent Wall Street Journal article: Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code. But beware, the article contains spoilers! Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code
Annual Math Pumpkin Carving Party
Each year students and faculty in the mathematics department celebrate Halloween by carving pumpkins. The "Math-o-Lanterns" carved are later displayed in various locations around Searles Science Building.