ANNOUNCEMENTS
MTH 338 — Spring 2012

6/16/12
All essays have been graded; course grades should be available online Monday.
You can pick up your corrected essay from me in my office.
I should be there much of the day on Monday; other times by appointment.
6/10/12
I will be in my office from 9–12 tomorrow (Monday).
6/5/12
My notes (soon to be a book) on the geometry of special relativity can be found here.
6/3/12
Some some further tips on writing a mathematical essay can be found here
Note that your final essay should not be double spaced.
You are strongly encouraged to discuss your essay with me this week.
I expect to be available in my office M 10–11 and 2:30–4, and WF 9:30–11 and 1:30–4.
These times are approximate; you may want to make an appoinment. Other times may also be possible.
5/29/12
This Friday's class (6/1) will meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).
5/23/12
The hyperbolic tree I showed in class today can be found here.
5/13/12
This Friday's class (5/18) will meet in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108H).
5/8/12
One of the questions which came up during class yesterday 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. (A similar tool exists for hyperbolic geometry, but not for elliptic geometry.
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.
5/5/12
The midterm will be in class on Monday, 5/14.
5/4/12
The figures I (tried to) draw in class today, showing why the exterior angle 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.
5/1/12
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.
4/30/12
There are two supplementary handouts for today's lab:
4/25/12
Next Monday's class (4/30) will meet in the computer lab in the back of the MLC (Kidder 108).
4/23/12
A sample homework solution can be found here.
Abbreviated instructions on how to use Mathematica to draw figures in taxicab geometry can be found here.
(This document also includes minimal instructions for using Maple and LaTeX in the MLC.)
4/22/12
I have posted each group's definition of non-Euclidean geometry on the blog.
Not all groups reached consensus; I've picked the version that seemed best. Feel free to comment further, including requests to change the "final" wording.
4/20/12
A copy of the handout for today's practice lab can be found here.
4/15/12
You may find these newspaper articles about court decisions involving taxicab geometry to be of interest.
4/14/12
A sketch of the solution proposed yesterday in class to the Euclidean "ellipse with three foci" problem can be found here. The claim is that the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the sides of the triangle not only intersect, but do so at the unique point with minimum distance sum to the three vertices.
The sketch was drawn with Geometer's Sketchpad. This software is available in the MLC computer lab, and you will use it later this term. You may wish to redraw the figure for yourself, and attempt to determine whether this solution is valid.
4/13/12
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.
4/11/12
You can find out more about using Dandelin spheres to prove some geometric properties of conic sections here or here.
4/6/12
A description of some criteria that I will use to evaluate written work can be found here.
4/4/12
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.
4/3/12
I have moved a few students from one group to another on the Student Blog due to changes in enrollment.
4/1/12
Please read this document with some comments on wordprocessing formats.
Nothing else is as good as LaTeX at typesetting mathematics. Especially if you are planning to become a mathematician, you are strongly encouraged to learn LaTeX. I am happy to help with LaTeX coding questions, but not with installation or editor-specific problems.
You may use any wordprocessing software you wish, so long as I can read the equations.
3/31/12
You may find some of the writing resources listed below to be helpful.