Professor of Mathematics Robert Kantrowitz '82 was the colloquium speaker at LeMoyne College's Mathematics Department on April 15. In his talk, "Golf, tee ball, and triangles," Kantrowitz compared various solutions to the problem of determining the angle of launch that maximizes the range of a projectile released from above ground level and landing on a hill. More ...

Two Hamilton seniors, Phillip Milner and Tom Morrell, have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. Milner is a chemistry/math double major who will be starting a Ph.D. program in chemistry in the fall, at an institution yet to be determined. Morrell is a chemistry major who will begin a Ph.D. program in chemistry at Princeton in the fall. More ...

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin gave invited talks at Hobart-William Smith College and at Skimore College over break. In her talk "Graphs and Symmetry" Boutin introduced graphs and their symmetries with the goal of helping the audience to develop intuition about the subject. She then showed some of the questions and results that have arisen in this area in recent years. Boutin's talk at Skidmore College was part of their annual Pi Mu Epsilon ceremony to induct new members. Pi Mu Epsilon is the national mathematics honor society. More ...

Associate Professor of Mathematics Sally Cockburn gave a talk, "Permutations and Geometric Realizations of Complete Bipartite Graphs," at the Discrete Mathematics Seminar at the University of Victoria on March 8. The presentation was based on her current sabbatical leave research, which uses the combinatorial structure of inversions in permutations to classify the straight-line drawings of complete bipartite graphs. The topic is an offshoot of joint work with Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin. More ...

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin recently published a research article "Determining Sets, Resolving Sets, and the Exchange Property" in Graphs and Combinatorics. In this work, Boutin examines two classes of subsets in a network, each of which can be used to uniquely identify both the vertices and the symmetries of the network. In particular she examines when such subsets are analogous to a basis, a set that is fundamental to other areas of mathematics. More ...

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin presented a colloquium at the Institute for Defense Analyses, Center for Communication Research, in Princeton, N.J., in February. More ...

Andrew Dykstra, assistant professor of mathematics, spoke at Furman University on Feb. 18. His talk investigated examples of chaotic dynamical systems that arise in nature. In addition to finding mathematical models of these systems, the talk focused on using numerical analysis to describe long-term evolution. More ...

Associate Professor of Mathematics Debra Boutin gave a talk "Thickness and Chromatic Numbers of Inflated Graphs" at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco in January. In her talk Boutin described the current state of work she's done with Michael Albertson of Smith College and Ellen Gethner of University of Colorado, Denver, on r-inflated networks. A network is r-inflated by replacing each vertex in by a set of r mutually connected vertices and replacing each edge between a pair of vertices with all edges between the associated 2r vertices. More ...

The Young People's Project at Hamilton College hosted its first semi-annual math tournament on Saturday, Dec. 5, in the Fillius Events Barn. Attendees included 24 students whom the organization works with at Donovan Middle School in Utica. More ...

Andrew Dykstra, assistant professor of mathematics, gave a colloquium talk to the mathematics faculty at the University of Denver on Oct. 15. The talk was titled "Very Weakly, Loosely, and Vaguely Bernoulli." It focused on classes of dynamical systems that exhibit random behavior, but whose behavior is not quite as random as a simple coin toss. More ...