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Mathematics Awareness Month · 1156 days ago
posted by Dr. Jon Breitenbucher
So there is Black History Month, National Poetry Month, and The Book of the Month…but the most sorely overlooked is Mathematics Awareness Month in April! What else could be better than finishing IS, and then celebrating the joyous gift called math? This year’s theme is ``Mathematics and the Cosmos’’. The theme highlights the crucial roll that mathematics has played in our exploration of the universe. Just take a minute to think about all of the math involved in the recent missions to Mars.
Not very many people are celebrating at all, so we are making a plea for you to go out and tell others about math and how it has fundamentally changed the way we live. We have television, computers, on-line shopping, pictures of the surface of Mars and all of these things couldn’t have happened without math. So in April, count, shop, listen to music (Jim recommends Agnes High Quality), do your taxes, and revel in the mathematics that surrounds all of us.
Math In The Movies · 1156 days ago
posted by Dr. Jon Breitenbucher
Here are some great movies that include math as fundamental elements in the plot. These are especially good to watch during Math month:
A Beautiful Mind
The story is about John Nash and his painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery. It covers Nash’s receipt of the Nobel prize from his days at Princeton, where he developed a groundbreaking economic theory, his meteoric rise to the cover of Forbes magazine and an MIT professorship, and on through to his eventual dismissal due to schizophrenic delusions.Why you should see this: Winner of four Academy Awards and a biography about a renowned mathematician.
π
π is a science fiction film about an aloof ``genius’’ who believes that mathematics is the language of nature, and pursues the fundamental formula for it. He finds the golden spiral occurring everywhere, including in an analysis of the stock exchange which he is carrying out. A number of mysterious people become interested in his research, including a Go-playing mathematician who seems his mentor, a woman from a Wall Street firm with access to powerful new computer hardware, and a group of kabbalistic Jews who believe that the Torah, when represented as numbers instead of letters, contains the true name of God.Why you should see this: It has the title π and it’s a pretty good movie.
Infinity
As a young boy, Richard was fascinated with science and objects in motion. This wonderment was reinforced through the efforts of his father. The only thing that mattered as much as science, and his family, was Arline, whom he met when they were both in school. But fate can often be cruel and Arline is found to be stricken by Tuberculosis. Undaunted, Richard studies the disease as he studies science in hopes of curing her. When her disease is in remission, they marry and he proceeds on to college where his studies and the war lead him to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project. While Richard is intrigued with the solution to the project, he is also concerned with the outcome and saddened with the failing health of Arline.Why you should see this: To see the best mathematical fighting scene! Richard Feynman has a calculating duel with a guy with an abacus. Feynman, using pencil and paper, adds a bit slower, but multiplies slightly faster, and really whips him in the cube root competition. Afterward, he explains it all to his fianceé.
Thanks to the Math in the Movies page for these suggestions and the Internet Movie Database for great reviews.
AMRE 2004 · 1156 days ago
posted by Dr. Jon Breitenbucher
The 2004 AMRE program saw 13 students work on five projects and 3 students work as interns. Last year’s project clients included ProQuest Automotive, ProQuest Business Solutions, Progressive Auto Insurance, The City of Wooster, and The College of Wooster. The projects required students to use a wide range of mathematical and computer skills.
Kenda Albertson, Peggy Winkler, and Jesse Smith worked for ProQuest, which develops and distributes a parts database for the automotive industry. The database is distributed on CD or DVD and in Web form. The parts database (for our purposes) consists of 2D, raster based, black and white line drawings of automobile parts. ProQuest has developed a proprietary image viewer that provides fast and accurate imaging of parts, but the viewer only deals with 2D raster images. Some automotive companies are currently providing ProQuest with part images in vector form. The team was asked to:
- Identify the top three vector-based image formats in terms of:
- Support for color,
- Size of image,
- Quality of viewed image,
- Speed of download/imaging.
- Identify the top three vector image viewers in terms of:
- Size of viewer,
- Quality of image produced,
- Speed of download/imaging.
- Investigate 3D image formats and the possibility of moving toward a 3D imaging system.
After researching vector image formats the team decided to look further into SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile), and DXF (Data eXchange File). SVG and CGM had already been received by ProQuest and DXF was a natural choice if ProQuest was thinking of moving to 3D images in the future. The team analyzed the formats and compiled information related to the criteria described in the problem. They also analyzed and rated multiple viewers for each formats. This research was designed to get an accurate picture of the advantages and disadvantages of each format so that ProQuest would be able to choose a format that would best suit the company’s needs. Their investigation of 3D formats began with sample images provided by ProQuest that were in XVL (eXtensible Virtual world description Language or eXtended VRML Language). They also found that X3D and WRL were worth investigating. The team provided ProQuest with information about these 3D formats to consider if they choose to adopt 3D images for their parts catalogue.
Jeremy DeGroot and Joel Wietelmann worked on the second project. 
The goal of the second project was to create an easy-to-use web-based contact management software system for the College of Wooster’s Student Affairs Division. The problem this was intended to solve was the communication of information among the widely scattered subdepartments of the Student Affairs Division. A way was needed to easily share information regarding each subdepartment’s interactions with students to help catch problems earlier. Requirements for the software included ease of use, portability, and security. The resulting product, Pansophy Contact Manager, is a web-based application written in the PHP scripting language and designed to run on top of a MySQL database. It provides an intuitive interface for recording and retrieving information about interactions between the College’s Student Affairs Division and its students. Pansophy contains a variety of security mechanisms and supports encrypted data transfer over a network when placed on an HTTPS-enabled web server.
Adam Hanley, Lauren Gruenebaum, and Ali Nau were asked to examine customer retention and price elasticity across various segments of Progressive auto insurance customers, with the purpose of determining which factors make a customer more or less price sensitive. The first part of the project involved extensive background research on why customers choose whether or not to renew their insurance policies, and general information on customer price sensitivity. Part of this included looking at complaints regarding general customer service and the handling of claims.
Data analysis comprised the second half of this project. Using SPSS, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, statistical analyses, including linear and logistic regression, in addition to descriptive statistics, were completed for each variable. The relationships between variables were also analyzed using the Cramer’s V statistic. Variables were then examined in conjunction with each other, creating several distinct segments which varied across individual variables; there was significant variation in the price elasticity of these segments.
The team of Gerry Ockers, Liz Whittam, and Becky Young investigated the economic impacts of Rubbermaid’s departure from the city of Wooster. The goal of this project was to provide information to both the city of Wooster and Wayne County public officials in estimating the effects of Rubbermaid’s departure from the Wooster area. The three areas of focus were the impacts on jobs, the housing market, and the tax implications. Techniques used include Location Quotient, Shift-Share Analysis, and Input-Output Analysis.
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