2013 PME National Meeting at MAA MathFest in Hartford, Connecticut,

July 31-August 3

Conference highlights:

• MAA-PME Student Reception, Wednesday, July 31, 4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
  
  

• PME Student Presentations, afternoons of Thursday, August 1 and Friday, August 2.





• The 2013 J. Sutherland Frame Lecture, Friday, August 2, 8:00pm - 8:50pm.

The 2013 Frame Lecturer is Gilbert Strang of MIT. His talk is "Matrices I Admire."



"I will start with my absolute favorite among all matrices. It has 2's down the main diagonal and  -1 's on the diagonals just above and just below. It is a Toeplitz matrix (constant diagonals), a second difference matrix (because of -1, 2, -1), and a highpass filter.  The matrix is tridiagonal and positive definite and you see it all over pure mathematics too. Its determinant is n+1, and most important are its eigenvectors which are pure sines. Recently I came back to this well-loved matrix, realizing that I didn't know its symmetric square root, its exponential or its cosine.  Those are all badly needed for the heat equation and wave equation. They are not tridiagonal but still amazing.  I will speak about another matrix too (the graph Laplacian) as well as the combination of differential equations and linear algebra."

Gilbert Strang was an undergraduate at MIT and a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford. 
His Ph.D. was from UCLA and since then he has taught at MIT. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Professor Strang has published eight textbooks including Introduction to Linear Algebra and Computational Science and Engineering. A new book is coming on Differential Equations and Linear Algebra.

Gil was the President of SIAM during 1999 and 2000, and Chair of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. He received the von Neumann Medal for computational mechanics, and the Henrici Prize for applied analysis. The first Su Buchin Prize and the Haimo Prize from the MAA were awarded for his contributions to teaching around the world. His video lectures on linear algebra and computational science and calculus are on ocw.mit.edu

PME Mourns the Loss of Our Friend and Colleague,
J. Douglas Faires



J. Douglas Faires, 71, of Pulaski, PA died Friday, December 21, 2012, following an extended illness.

Doug graduated from Youngstown State University in 1963 and, after earning his Ph.D. from University of South Carolina in 1969, returned to YSU as a faculty member until his retirement in 2006 -- the same year he was instrumental in establishing the Center for Undergraduate Research at YSU.

For nearly two decades, Doug was a member of the council of Pi Mu Epsilon National Mathematics Honorary Society, including a term as president. In addition, he was awarded the MacDuffee Award by Pi Mu Epsilon for lifetime service in 2005.

Doug leaves behind his wife Barbara (currently Secretary of the MAA and retired professor) and his daughter Erika.

The MAA has further information here. A more in-depth obituary is available here.

 

Two former Frame lecturers, Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham, have a new book out! The Oct. 21 issue of The Chronicle Review (in The Chronicle of Higher Education) has a story about the book and a review. You can see the article here.

April is Mathematics Awareness Month!

 

• Membership enrollment directions for faculty advisors

• Welcome to the Newest PME Chapters!

• Want to establish a chapter of Pi Epsilon at your college or university? Learn how here.

• PME Merchandise is now available for order online. Click here to visit the new merchandise page.

• The PME Newsletter is available here and in the drop-down menu under Organization.

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The Fall 2012 Pi Mu Epsilon Journal is now available.

NEW! Back issues of the PME Journal are available online. Look under the "Journal" tab above.

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