Gauss: What to do with 120 dodecahedra

Dear grads, undergrads, and faculty,

Our GAUSS speaker today is David Gay. He'll be giving a talk titled,
"What to do with 120 dodecahedra." Note that this is information is
not the same as in the seminar announcement. His abstract will be
provided at the bottom of this e-mail.

This is where I usually type something like, "as always, snacks will
be provided." Often those snacks are store-bought cookies. However,
this week we at GAUSS have the distinct pleasure of announcing that
the snacks are being home-baked by our very own MT Padberg. So
whether you like cookies or you like dodecahedra, there are a plethora
of reasons to attend GAUSS today.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. feel free to
contact one of your GAUSS co-organizers. We reserve the right to
ignore you, but you shouldn't let that stop you. Have a wonderful week.

Your GAUSS co-organizers,
Trent and Ross


Speaker: David Gay
Title: What to do with 120 dodecahedra.
Date, time, location: Tuesday, October 26, 4:30 PM, 118 MLH

Abstract:
You'll also need an extra dimension to make this work. I'll describe a
way to glue 120 dodecahedra together in 4-dimensional space to make a
closed 4-dimensional version of a polyhedron. BTW, a dodecahedron is a
3-dimensional polyhedron built by gluing 12 pentagons together in
3-dimensional space. I'll also show you how to draw a dodecahedron, a
skill which might come in handy some day. And, BTW, a pentagon is a
2-dimensional polygon built by gluing 5 line segments together in
2-dimensional space. And a line segment is a 1-dimensional ...?

GAUSS

The GAUSS speaker today is Alex Zupan, and he is giving a talk titled:
"The Hausdorff metric: the magic and the mystery."  From the looks of
that title one could get the impression that Alex is a mathemagician.
His abstract will appear below.

GAUSS occurs today, Tuesday October 19, at 4:30 P.M. in 118 MLH.
Snacks will be provided and everyone is welcome to attend.  We are
always looking for ways to improve GAUSS, so if you have suggestions
feel free to e-mail or talk to either Trent or me.

Your GAUSS co-organizers,
Ross and Trent


ASTRACT: Everyone learns how to find the distance between two points in
a standard precalculus class, but what about the distance between two
sets?  For any two points in Euclidean space, there exists a unique
point at a given location between them.  However, in the geometry of
the Hausdorff metric, intuitive facts from the realm of Euclidean
geometry are no longer valid.  In this talk, we provide a glimpse into
the strange world of the Hausdorff metric.  Think graph theory won't
be involved?  Think again!

GAUSS Today!

Our GAUSS speaker this week is Candice Price.  She's going to pick up
where Mike left off last week, the title of her talk is:
N-colorability the sequal: Tangles!
She had this to say about her talk:

I will continue on in the talk about colorability of knots but with an
added twist (pun intended)... tangle colorability!

Here is the pertinent information:
Speaker: Candice Price
Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: 118 MLH

Here are the answers to some questions that have been asked on occasion:
Will snacks be provided at GAUSS?  Yes

Have a good week everyone,
Ross and Trent

Common Errors in College Math

MGB is compiling a list of common mathematical errors we see our students making.  This list will be provided to local high school math teachers to share with their students (During SK Day 2010 some teachers requested such a list when asked how math graduate students could help high school math education). 

To help with this list please comment to this post, including the errors you see AND the relevant math courses.


Disclaimer: These mistakes are not necessarily being made by current students.  The people commenting below are not necessarily the current TAs or instructors for these courses, but may have taught, graded, or tutored students in the past.   The ultimate goal of compiling such a list is to identify common problems so that they may be corrected.

GAUSS Today

The GAUSS speaker today is Mike Fitzpatrick, and the title of his talk
is "N-Colorability of Knots and Links."  In a recent interview Mike
had this to say about his talk:

Tricolorability serves as a common first look at knot invariants.  I
will give an introduction of knots, knot diagrams, the Reidemeister
moves and tricolorability.  I will then generalize tricolorability to
n-colorability for any integer n > 1.  Naturally, n-colorability is
also a knot invariant.  I will end with some (I think) interesting
thoughts on colorability.  This talk will assume no prior knowledge of
anything at all and so is accessible to everyone.

So come to GAUSS today, Oct. 5, at 4:30 PM in room 118 MLH.

GAUSS spots have started to fill up, but we still have a few spots
available.  Contact us if you would like to talk, and for more
information check http://math.uiowa.edu/~rkilgore/GAUSS.html for more
information.

Thanks and have a pleasant day,
Ross and Trent

Meeting Reminder

There will be an MGB meeting on Wednesday, 4:30 in the Muhly lounge.

Specific items in the agenda include the following:

- Fall picnic in October

- Fundraising (SK Day, Math Modeling competition, etc.)

- Helping local high school math teachers

- Chalkboards

We hope to see you there.