Math 480(O), Senior Seminar

Instructor: Pavel Guerzhoy

The class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4 - 4:50pm at Keller Hall 402


Office: 501, Keller Hall (5-th floor)

e-mail: pavel(at)math(dot)hawaii(dot)edu (usually, I respond to e-mail messages within a day)
Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 2-3pm at Keller Hall 402

After the Spring break the class moves online entirely.

We will have the second portion of the assessment exam as a take-home exam later, and we will have the final third portion of the assessment exam during the examination week also as a take home exam.

To date, every student willing to pass the class has made two presentations, a short one, and a larger one, the latter being on a miniature from the textbook.

The class has an O-focus and is devoted to mathematical presentations. Students are not supposed to be able to make presentations online. For these reasons, with little to no exceptions, we continue as follows.


I assign to watch a certain professional mathematical presentation online (give a link), and every students drops me an e-mail (just several lines) related to the presentation.
The student response may discuss either on the mathematical content of the presentation, or on the specifics (advantages and drawbacks) of the way to present the material, or both. The due date for every response is the date/time of the next class.

I will read all your responses. In some cases, if I feel that my comments are necessary, I will write back. In most cases, I will not. Please note that I do not request any lengthy e-mail discussion. Literally a couple of lines which demonstrate that a student has watched the video and has some thoughts about it absolutely suffice.


The table below will consists the video watching assignments and will be updated regularly.
You read it as follows: you watch a mathematical fable as a substitution for the Tuesday, March 24 class and you must e-mail me about this video before Tuesday March 31 class.


Date Link to a video to watch Remarks/Comments
Tue, Mar 24 a mathematical fable
Tue, Mar 31 ellipces and Dandelin spheres
Thu, Apr 2 two squares theorem
Tue, Apr 7 the useless number
Thu, Apr 9 fundamental theorem of algebra odd polynomials you may benefit by eatching that before: it exploits the same idea in a simpler setting
Tue, Apr 14 euler's formula
Thu, Apr 16 visualizing quaternions
Tue, Apr 21 quaternions and rotations
Thu, Apr 23 Part 2 of the assessment exam You answer as many questions as you can.
You work on every problem on a separate page.
You deliver back to me for grading all your work on the exam at once electronically via e-mail
Tue, Apr 28 Part 2 of the assessment exam due
Thu, Apr 30 Part 3 of the assessment exam You answer as many questions as you choose to (certainly not all of them!!)
Typically, these are questions related to the 400 level classes which you took.
You work on every problem on a separate page.
You deliver back to me for grading all your work on the exam at once electronically via e-mail.
Tue, May 5 Part 3 of the assessment exam due
Thu, May 7 Riemann hypothesis this is the last video in this class to report about






General Expectations
The Department of Mathematics has a general expectations statement, which we are assumed to follow in this class.


Course Objective
This is a class directed to Math majors who are close to their graduation. The primary goal of the class is to develop mathematics presentation skills of the students. This includes oral presentation skills in the first place, while using technology such as LaTeX beamer class and/or powerpoint is highly encouraged.
For instructions on LaTeX beamer class, see, for instance, one, two, three, and, possibly, tons of other web-sites.
I know little about Microsoft Powerpoint and other proprietary presentation making software, while those who use that may achieve quite impressive outcome.

This is a mathematics class which is designated to have an oral focus. As a consequence, various types of oral mathematical presentations is a subject of emphasis.



Grading Policy
Math 480 is offered only as a CR/NC class. Students cannot pass the class without completing the following to the satisfaction of the instructor:

Textbook
In this class, we use the book
Thirty-three Miniatures Mathematical and Algorithmic Applications of Linear Algebra
by Jiří Matoušek
Student Mathematical Library, Volume 53, published by American Mathematical Society,




Contents
In this class, we focus on presentations .