University of Pittsburgh: Department of Mathematics

Past Issues

Spring 2002

Undergraduate News

Integration Bee
The Second Annual Integration Bee was held on Thursday, March 21st, at 8 PM in room 343 of the Masonic Temple. Undeterred by the unseasonal snow storm outside, 26 Pitt undergrad students competed for $200 of Pitt Bookstore gift certificates, donated by the University of Pittsburgh Honors College. Their efforts were cheered by a crowd estimated at around 100 students (grad and undergrad), faculty, and parents.

Congratulations to Integration Champ, Asha Kamat. And to runner-ups: Jasun Gong, Jason Hadorn, David Haefele, Leslie Kurtz, and Dimitry Ushakov. More

Putnam Prize Success
The Putnam Prize is a National Competition for undergraduates. December 2, 2001 the Pitt Math team of Dorian Croitoru, Sevak Mkrtchyan and Rupert Venzke (coached and directed by Greg Constantine and George Sparling), spent 6 hours tackling the fiercest questions the Putnam committee could devise. They were competing against 2818 participants in teams from 434 colleges.

Continuing the tradition of previous years, the team did very well coming 18th overall. This is an excellent team effort - up five places from last year. Top scoring team member was Dorian Croitoru who came 37th, receiving an Honorable Mention for his efforts. Congratulations to all the team! More

Culver Awards Dinner
April 9th the annual Culver Awards Dinner was held at the Pitt Club. Some of our best and brightest undergraduates received recognition for their successes:

Teplitz Scholarship Leslie Kurtz Anna Nys

Culver Prize Amy Copas Dorian Croitoru Jasun Gong Charles Miller Sevak Mkrtchyan Silviu Predoiu Nathan Ross Rupert Venzke

Putnam Team Dorian Croitoru Sevak Mkrtchyan Rupert Venzke

Integration Bee Winners Asha Kamat Jasun Gong Leslie Kurtz Jason Hadorn David Haefele Dimitry Ushakov

Pitt Math Club
The PITT MATH Club was started at the request of students for a forum to listen and learn Mathematics not normally covered in their usual courses. The meetings consist of a lecture by a faculty or student on a topic of interest to them and the members.
This Term we had talks by Jonathan Rubin,On the sum of 1/1+1/(2)²+1/(3)² =... ; Tom Metzger, On Klein's Erlangen Programme. Other topics covered included: On the 3x+1 problem, and On Fourier Series.
We will have one last meeting on April 19th by Bill Layton. The Math Club is organized by Tom Metzger (metzger@math.pitt.edu). If you have any questions about the Club, or suggestions for future talks - contact him!

Research Project: Finding Zeros of Polynomials
The task of finding zeros of polynomials has been an important one for 5000 years. We know from the work of Abel and Galois that there are quintics with no exact solution in terms of radicals. So the question becomes: How can we find approximations to all the zeros of a given polynomial? To find one approximate root we would apply Newton's Method.

Undergraduates Jasun Gong and Rupert Venzke, directed by Paul Gartside, undertook a research project devoted to solving this problem. The aim of our project was to read a recent paper by Hubbard et al on the topology and geometry of Newton's method when applied to polynomials. From understanding that paper Rupert and Jasun were able to write java applets which find all zeros of a given polynomial. More

Graduate News

Graduate Seminar
Starting Fall 2001, the graduate students have been running a regular weekly seminar. The aim of this seminar is to give graduate students the opportunity to speak in front of an audience in an informal and friendly setting.
Some people have spoken about their own research, giving beginning students an excellent opportunity to learn about the current research interests of the department. Others spoke on topics from a range of areas including algebra, complex analysis, topology, geometry, pdes and relativity. More

Culver-Teplitz Awards
The Culver-Teplitz awards are given to select graduate students who have set standards for excellence in all their academic endeavors. They are given in recognition of teaching excellence and research accomplishment.
This year our department is pleased to announce the two winners are Mr. Jason Morris and Ms Gergina Pencheva.They are both excellent teachers. Jason is early in his studies but has great promise in research based on his depth of understanding. He is working on nonlinear analysis with Professor Rabier. Gergina is working with Professor Yotov on large scale scientific computing and has written three research papers in her short time in our department. Congratulations to both Gergina and Jason!

Fellowships, Fellowships, Fellowships
Mellon fellowships are awarded in a university wide competition. This year two students from the mathematics department were awarded Mellon fellowships: Ms. Gergina Pencheva and Ms. Rodica Curtu. Ms. Curtu has written several papers and is well on her way to completing her second book while a graduate student at Pitt! She is working with Professor Ermentrout on mathematical biology. Gergina is working with Professor Yotov on large scale scientific computing and has written three research papers in her short time in our department. Congratulations to Gergina and Rodica!
This year three incoming mathematics department graduate students were selected for recognition in the FAS-PBC fellowship competition. Ms Bojana Pejic , from Oxford University, was awarded a fellowship. She was ranked #1 across the Arts and Sciences. Ms Carolina Cardosa and Ms Betsy McCall were the 3rd and 4th alternates. All three will be joining our graduate program this fall.

Outreach

High School Research Projects
In a link up arranged by Ido Jamar of the Department of Instruction and Learning, students Kim Kelley and Christal Adams of Westinghouse High School (Homewood) worked on math projects with Prof.s Tom Metzger and Paul Gartside. Christal and Tom explored the number theory behind the Fibonacci Sequence. Kim and Paul investigated Borromean rings (three circles linked together so that if you remove one the others are unlinked - see the diagram left) and their generalization, Brunnian links.
Kim and Christal presented their projects at the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Sciences Fair - and both were awarded First Prizes. -Well done Christal and Kim! Kim went on to present at the Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair, April 5-6 at Heinz Field. She was awarded a $4 000 scholarship to CMU to attend Summer classes. `It was intense', said Kim, `It was exciting!'.

Pittsburgh launches limsup.org
Pittsburgh math has launched limsup www.limsup.org, a site for math news junkies. The name "limsup" is pronounced like "limp soup" without the "p" on "limp". The name is a mathematical term for the highest possible standard, or somewhat more precisely the highest possible level that can be consistently maintained.
The site provides current news on topics of current interest to mathematicians and math graduate students. When a proof (not confirmed) was announced of the famous Poincare conjecture, links to the preprint appeared on the site. When two prominent computer scientist wagered $10,000 over whether a computer would pass a Turing test by 2029, limsup invited a discussion of wagers over famous unsolved math problems.
Limsup is less formal than official pages sponsored by the American Math Society, less focused than sites such as ArXiv xxx.lanl.gov that specialize in mathematical preprints, and more thoughtfully moderated than open math discussion groups that succumb at times to abuses and flames.