MAA Math Alert - February 2008

News and Views

Geometry in the Snow
When word comes down that his team has been accepted to the annual International Snow Sculpture Championships in Breckenridge, Colorado, an accomplishment in its own right, the real work for Stan Wagon is just beginning.Read More

Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Conferences: Look for an RUMC Near You
Undergraduate students should be on the look-out for a Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Conference in their area. These conferences give students an opportunity to meet others in the field and share their experiences.

Prominent Mathematician in India Accused of Plagiarism
Calcutta University mathematician Mahimaranjan Adhikary has been accused of plagiarism by his home institution after reviewers writing in Math Reviews found three of his papers to be tainted. Read More

Mathematicians Model Actual Snowflakes
Snowflakes have puzzled mathematicians from the time Johannes Kepler predicted that the six-pointed structure reflects an underlying crystal structure. Now--four hundred years later--mathematicians claim to be able to model three-dimensional snowflakes via a computer program. Read More

Featured Articles

Card Colm by Colm Mulcahy: Plurality Events, Standard Deviations, and Skewed Perspectives
Cards shown to be numbered 1 to 8 are jumbled, and a spectator is given a lot of free choices, while the cards are face down, to determine which four he gets. The spectator then is asked to look at the faces of his cards, and square the resulting numbers. Read More

How Euler Did It by Ed Sandifer: Fallible Euler
Now that 2007, the so-called “Euler year” is over and the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of his birth are winding down, perhaps we will be forgiven if we admit an uncomfortable fact: Euler was sometimes wrong. Read More

New From the MAA

Register for 2008 PREP Workshops
Join your colleagues to learn more about mathematics and politics, or mathematical biology, or just to explore new ideas for teaching your calculus courses. Read More

“How to Run a Teacher’s Math Circle Workshop”
The MAA, in partnership with the American Institute of Mathematics, is hosting this workshop at the Carriage House conference center in Washington, DC, July 21-25. Read More

A Radical Approach to Lebesgue's Theory of Integration
This lively introduction to measure theory and Lebesgue integration is motivated by the historical questions that led to its development. Bressoud stresses the original purpose of the definitions and theorems, highlighting the difficulties mathematicians encountered as these ideas were refined. Read More

Is Mathematics Inevitable?
Without question, the collection of entertaining mathematical stories in Is Mathematics Inevitable? is sure to have something for every fan of the subject. Each of these tales is just as fun and thought provoking as when they were originally published.Read More