ANNOUNCEMENTS
MTH 338 — Spring 2008

6/14/08

All essays have been graded; course grades should be available online tomorrow.

You can pick up your corrected essay from me in my office.
I should be there most of Monday morning; other times by appointment.

6/13/08

Strange but true: The 13th of the month is more likely to be a Friday than any other day of the week!

Give up? Further information is available here.

6/5/08

I will be in my office much of the day Friday, 6/6, and all morning Monday, 6/9.

6/4/08

I would appreciate getting an electronic copy of your paper along with the hard copy due Monday.

You do not need to include hand-drawn figures or other items not easily converted to electronic form.

6/2/08

I expect to be in my office much of the day tomorrow, Tuesday 6/3. I'll be in and out, so you might want to check with me by phone or email before coming over.

5/29/08

As part of a study being conducted at OSU and WOU, a colleague is looking for students who are finishing MTH 338, but have not taken MTH 492, to volunteer to participate in a 45-minute interview on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday (June 9, 10, or 11) at a mutually convenient time. The interview will be about geometry, and will have nothing to do with your grade in MTH 338. If you are interested, please email Barbara Edwards. Cookies will be provided.

5/28/08

I will be giving a talk aimed at physics juniors next Wednesday, 6/4/08, at 1 PM in Winger 304, which you may find interesting. This talk will emphasize the role of the distance function in determining the geometry, with a brief discussion of the relevance to both special and general relativity. More info is available here.

Another talk in this series, the one on Friday, 6/6, may also be of interest to some of you, as it will discuss applications of the octonions to physics.

5/27/08

Here are some general comments which apply to many of the introductions submitted to me last week:

• The primary focus of the introduction should be to describe what you will do.
• A history lesson is usually not a good place to start. Such material probably belongs in the second section on "background", or possibly towards the end of the introduction, after talking about what you will do.
• You should use clear, precise language.
• It is a good idea to read your work aloud — preferably to a friend — to make sure it says what you think it does.
• If you regard "Taxicab Geometry" as the name of the (model of the) geometry, then both words should be capitalized. If not, then it's "taxicab geometry"; "Taxicab geometry" is incorrect except at the beginning of a sentence. (However, "Euclidean" should always be capitalized, even in the middle of a word, such as "non-Euclidean".)

If you haven't yet received an individual email message from me (and submitted an introduction to me on Friday), you can assume that I had no major comments.

5/26/08

Each figure should have a label, such as "Figure 1", and should be referred to as such in the text.

Every source should be referenced briefly in the text.

Any reasonable style is acceptable. Some common conventions are to number your references in square brackets, e.g. [1], or to put the names of the author(s) in parentheses, e.g. (Dray) or (Dray 2006).

Full citation details for each reference should be given in the bibliography.

Again, any reasonable style is acceptable. Citation details include author(s), title, publisher, year. For websites, in addition to the URL you should provide a title, an author if possible, and the date you viewed the site.

Your draft may be double spaced, but this is not necessary. Your final version should not be double spaced.

5/23/08

Next Wednesday's class will meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).

5/19/08

You can find out more at Wikipedia about the tractrix and pseudosphere.

5/13/08

Instructions for posting your project proposal to the Wiki are now available here.

You have tentatively been assigned to a group based on your submitted topic. If you can't access your group's page, or if you wound up in the wrong group, please let me know.

If you haven't yet submitted a topic, please do so ASAP! Failure to submit a project proposal on time is likely to make it difficult to write a good paper. If you're still having trouble narrowing down your topic, make sure to discuss it with me on Wednesday.

5/12/08

The figures I (tried to) draw in class last week, showing why the exterior theorem fails, can be found here.

These figures were drawn using the Java applet Spherical Easel to model spherical geomtry.

A similar applet for the Poincaré Disk can be found here.

We will meet this Friday in Kidder 108H (the back room at the MLC, not the computer room)

5/6/08

The midterm will be in class next Monday, 5/12.

The exam will cover taxicab geometry, hyperbolic geometry, and elliptic geometry.

The emphasis will be on qualitative understanding, rather than detailed proofs.

A basic acquaintance with the structure of the SMSG postulates is recommended
(i.e. knowing that there are incidence postulates, ruler postulates, etc.).

Expect true/false questions and short answer questions, as well as compuatational questions.

The exam is closed book.

5/2/08

Monday's class will again meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).

4/30/08

A list of potential topics has been posted here.

This would be a good time to reread my advice on how to write mathematical essays.

4/28/08

OSU has a WIC Survival Guide, which can be found here.

One of the valuable resources on this list is The Writing Center, where you can get help with your writing skills. They may not be able to offer much advice about incorporating the math, but they can certainly help with spelling, grammar, readability, etc.

A more detailed description of the expectations for this week's lab assignment has been added to the homework page.

4/26/08

Here is some further information about using TeX:

An introduction by example to using TeX for mathematics can be found here.

A popular, open source frontend to TeX is LyX.

4/25/08

One of the questions which came up during Wednesday's lab was how to copy lengths and angles from one place to another. Lengths are easy: use circles!

Imagine performing constructions with a compass and straightedge. You're allowed to set the compass to the size of a given line segment, then draw a circle of that radius elsewhere. You can mimic this construction in Geometer's Sketchpad by first selecting the point and line segment, then going to the Construct menu and choosing Circle by Center+Radius.

Right angles are also easy: construct perpendicular lines. But general angles are a bit more complicated.

Take a look at my solution in \\poole\ClassFolders\Math-Dray\SAS.gsp, and see if you can figure out how I did it. You should be able to move points A, B, and C around while preserving the congruence of the two triangles.

4/23/08

Friday's class will be in our usual classroom, but Monday's class will again meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).

If you missed Wednesday's class, you should work through the handouts on your own, which you can find here and here.

4/21/08

Wednesday's class will meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).

4/18/08

Summarizing our discussion this week, here are some features of good writing, in no particular order:

• Clear, concise description of the problem;
• Appropriate amount of detail;
• All symbols clearly explained;
• All (tricky bits of the) calculations explained;
• Clear, concise summary of the solution;
• Easy to follow;
• Correct use of mathematical reasoning, language, and symbols;
• Correct computations;
• Inclusion of clearly-explained figures;
• Correct spelling and grammar.

Some other tips:

Always use complete sentences.

Both inline and displayed equations must be grammatically correct parts of sentences.

Say what you mean!

Avoid words such as "this", "that", "it" unless the context is crystal clear.

Avoid redundant wording.

A definition should be useful.

Be careful when using words with both a technical and a common meaning.

Balance precision and clarity.

4/16/08

Clarification:

Your group's definition of non-Euclidean geometry should be put in the "Group Definition" section of the page, not in the Discussion.

4/15/08

Clarification:

Neatly hand-written homework will be accepted, but it's good practice for your essay to type everything.

4/9/08

Challenge for Friday:

Construct the taxicab ellipse with foci at (−3,0) and (3,0) and with distance sum 10.

4/7/08

All written work for this course should be typed. Hand-written equations will be accepted, but should be viewed as a last resort. Hand-drawn figures are acceptable, but should be of high quality.

A brief discussion of mathematical wordprocessing formats can be found here.

Here are some examples of online mathematical text.

• This paper was converted to HTML for online readers by a professional journal. The published version in PDF format can be found here; the copyright notice can be found here.
• This paper was converted by me from TeX to MathML. Further information about MathML is available here, and a print version in PDF format can be found here. Both versions were published in an online journal after some further reformatting.
• The MTH 338 Wiki uses Javascript to display mathematics. For further information, see the playground.

4/2/08

Challenge for Friday:

Draw a picture of the 13-point projective geometry.
Draw a picture of the 16-point affine geometry.

These geometries are defined in the problems for RG §1.4.

4/1/08

The MTH 338 Wiki will be updated frequently this week; you might want to take another look.

When completing the first assignment, do not delete the equal signs!
Also, do not start lines with either blank spaces or tabs. (This is the wiki comment syntax...)

2/27/08

Information about the waiting list can be found here.

1/19/08

Some advice on writing a mathematical essay can be found here.