Day 1, Mat194: Mathematical Sciences Seminar

• Announcements
  • Thanks for signing up! I'm glad that you're here.
  • "What better way to kick-off the fall semester than with pancakes?? Thursday, August 22 from 9am - 10am, 4th floor atrium."

• Introductions (4x6 cards)
  1. Name
  2. Where are you from?
  3. What is your calling? ("a calling has to do with one's larger purpose, personhood, deepest values, and the gift one wishes to give the world.... A calling is about the use one makes of a career." David Orr, Earth in Mind)
  4. What is your career objective?
  5. Something special about yourself.

• The course website will be useful: http://www.nku.edu/~longa/classes/mat194

• Syllabus (logistics, etc.)

• Assignments will be available on the website. Keep checking on those.

• Rather than use a text, I've decided to assign some readings which I will scan for you.

• Grading: as this course is pass/fail, the grade for the course will be determined by your presence, your active participation, your attendance at talks, by some modest homework, as well as by your final project and presentation. Make it easy on yourself, and conscientiously attend.

• Speaking of project and presentation, what's this project all about? Something you love, I hope! You might discover mathematics in a game that you enjoy, something you've noticed in a garden or at the zoo?

  Here are some guidelines. Hopefully you'll be working with a partner.

  Your first assignment includes this:

  Visit the Final Project page from Fall, 2011 mat194 group

  • Find one project that you admire, and
  • Find one project that you think needs work.
  • Type up (to hand in next time) a one page description of
    1. what made the preferred project better, and
    2. what made the lesser project worse.
    Cover anything and everything: appearance, style, mathematics, etc.

• The Class Agreement

• When you attend an event, you'll want to bring along your evaluation form.
• You will want to write well on this form. You may want to write a rough draft, and then submit the more polished version.
• The Heather Bullen Summer Research Celebration is coming up just next week (August 27, 4-6pm, Student Union Ballroom). This is an ideal way to discharge one of your talks/events. Furthermore, we'll award an informal prize of our own: whichever presenter(s) receives the most evals ("votes") will be invited to present to our class as well, to share their work with the whole group. The math talks to consider are listed here.
• Another event rapidly approaching is Miami University's 42nd Annual Mathematics Conference on Optimization, Septermber 19th and 20th. You can discharge three of your talks by attending this conference. More details will be forthcoming.

The beginning of a school year means that parents have to make a lot of important decisions. I want to consider two that I had to make within the last few days.

Using the two source documents and whatever mathematics you know, decide

1. Whether to take the insurance on the MacBook Air, and
2. Which photograph package represents "the best value" in a sense that you are to determine:
   • LifeTouch, page left
   • LifeTouch, page right
   You need at least 1 8x10, and 8 2x3s, and will consider the others if they're "cheap enough" given the need to buy the first two.