BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY
          DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS CALENDAR
 
                         Week of November 11-15

Monday, November 11

 3:30 PM  MAPLE WORKSHOP  - SciCompLab on the classroom (south) side
          John Gresser, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU.
          Topics: 1) Applications of integration.  Well chosen names
            seem to help students a lot with the concepts that they
            seem to struggle with in a pencil-paper environment.  2)
            The definition of ln(x).  It's hard to make this a real
            and believable issue.  Maple helps.  3) Some complications
            with the antiderivative of 1/x.  Maple, properly, says
            it's ln(x), even when x is negative.  Hmmmm.  4) Limits.
            How do we know Maple's answer is correct?  We use
            L'Hopital's Rule.  We'll discuss an example of a function
            f(x) with a nonzero limit as x goes to infinity, but which
            always evaluates to 0, as soon as we let x be more than
            just a little bit. 5) Rate of change applications, and an
            annoying Maple complication.  6) Techniques of
            integration.  It's time to bring out lots of new Maple
            commands.  They're impressive!

Wednesday, November 13

 2:30 PM  ANALYSIS SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
          Neal Carothers, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU. 
          To be announced.

 3:30 PM  STATISTICS SEMINAR  - Scientific Computing Lab 
          Jim Albert, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU.
          "ActivStats"
          Abstract: We'll preview ActivStats -- a new program for
            learning probability statistics (including videos,
            lecture, hands-on activities and a statistics package).

Thursday, November 14

 1:30 PM  SCIENTIFIC COMPUTATION SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
          Fausto Morales, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU. 
          "Splines in computer graphics and geometric modeling"
          Summary: When defining curves and surfaces, a problem often
            encountered both in computer graphics and industrial
            design is the following: Either the relevant curves must
            run exactly through predetermined points, or a limit can
            be assigned to the distance between the curves and the
            points. The first system is accurate, but each segment of
            a piecewise curve is limited by two adjacent points. The
            second system yields a smaller number of segments, since
            each segment can account for more than two points, with
            the major advantage of reducing the number of patches
            making a surface, but at the cost of a certain loss of
            accuracy. Such representations of curves and surfaces are
            called splines. We shall briefly survey and compare
            several popular processes for defining splines.

 3:30 PM  ALGEBRA SEMINAR  - Room 459 MSC
          Jack Hayden, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU.
          "Collineations in finite planes: Can there be a rigid plane?"

Friday, November 15

 3:30 PM  Coffee
 3:45 PM  COLLOQUIUM  - Room 459 MSC
          Gabor J. Szekely, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics, BGSU
            and Eotvos Lorand Technical University, Budapest
          "Property is a nuisance"
          Memorial Lecture in Honor of Paul Erdos
          Abstract: The most prolific mathematician of our time died
            in September 1996 at the age 83 while attending a
            mathematical conference in Warsaw.  Erdos was one of the
            most influential scientists of our century, founded many
            new fields of mathematics, including discrete mathematics
            which is the foundation of computer science, published
            more than 1500 papers, had 500 co-authors, and to quote
            The New York Times, was the "prince of problem solvers and
            the absolute monarch of problem posers".  He was a member
            of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and many other
            national academies.  He also initiated the Budapest
            Semesters in Mathematics program for outstanding American
            undergraduates, of which the speaker was the program
            manager for more than ten years.  In fact, the speaker
            first met Erdos at the age of 9, and remained close
            friends with him until his death.

This announcement and a schedule of future colloquia are available on
the Worldwide Web; see http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/math/.
If you would like to place a link to this calendar on your page,
use html code 
<A HREF="gopher://gopher.bgsu.edu/0/Departments/math/Weekly_Calendar">
Department of Mathematics and Statistics calendar</A>
If you wish to be placed on the e-mail distribution list, or have 
comments or material for the calendar, send email to