Calendar of Events

Calendar of Events
Clare Boothe Luce Research Scholars

Spring 2010 Events

Tuesday, October 5, at 4:15 p.m.
Searles Science Building, Room 217.
The Math Department Seminar Talk will be presented by Professor Bob Devaney

"The Fractal Geometry of the Mandelbrot Set".

Abstract: In this lecture we describe several folk theorems concerning the Mandelbrot set. While this set is extremely complicated from a geometric point of view, we will show that, as long as you know how to add and how to count, you can understand this geometry completely. We will encounter many famous mathematical objects in the Mandelbrot set, like the Farey tree and the Fibonacci sequence. And we will find many soon-to-be-famous objects as well, like the “Devaney” sequence.
A reception will be held at 4:00 in Searles 214.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010   
Tracy McKay '06, Iowa State University
12:10-12:40, Hutchinson Room, Thorne Dining Hall

Tuesday, March 30, 2010   
Li-Mei Lim, Brown University
12:10-12:40, Hutchinson Room, Thorne Dining Hall

Tuesday, April 6, 2010   
Professor Margaret Robinson '79, Mt. Holyoke College
7:00-8:00pm, Searles 217
Holmes Lecture Series
Robinson, a professor of mathematics at Mount Holyoke College, will give a talk titled "Two Ways to Count the Solutions to Polynomial Equations" The lecture is open to the public and admission is free.

Robinson's talk will introduce the general idea of a generating function that is, to quote mathematician Herbert Wilf, "a clothesline on which we hang up a sequence of numbers for display." It will look at examples of generating functions for different polynomials and discuss what is known about them. Her talk will conclude with the "tantalizing, sometimes frustrating," questions about what is not known and about how these generating functions relate to the Igusa local zeta function.

Professor Margaret Robinson '79, Mt. Holyoke CollegeMargaret Robinson, a member of the Bowdoin class of 1979, went on to earn her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University. A number theorist whose work combines analysis, algebra, and topology to understand number theoretic objects such as zeta functions, her work has been funded by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, and the Mathematics Association of America. She has also directed several Research Experience for Undergraduates summer institutes at Mount Holyoke, and this year received the Mount Holyoke College Faculty Award for Teaching.

The Cecil T. and Marion C. Holmes Mathematics Lecture was established in 1977 by friends, colleagues, and former students to honor Cecil T. Holmes, a member of the faculty for 39 years and Wing Professor of Mathematics.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010   
Professor Emily Dryden '99, Bucknell University
12:10-12:40, Hutchinson Room, Thorne Dining Hall

Bowdoin Math Lectures 2010Monday, May 3, 2010   
Professor Glenn Stevens, Boston University
7:30-8:30pm, TBA
Christie Lecture Series

Tuesday, May 4, 2010  
Professor Glenn Stevens, Boston University
4:00-5:00pm, TBA
Christie Lecture Series