2009 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Clavius group at Notre Dame in 2009

List of Clavius mathematicians

Hugh Albright FSC
Tom Banchoff
Adam Bartoszek
John Blanton
Tom Cecil
Lawrence Conlon
Pedro Ferreira SJ
Margaret Freije
Richard Freije
James Heitsch
Michele Intermont
Ron Knill
Jack Lutts
Maura Mast
Michael May SJ

John Poluikis CSB
Sr Barbara Reynolds SDS
Patrick Ryan
Paul Schweitzer SJ
Dennis Snow
Joanne Snow
James Stasheff
William Stoeger SJ
Pedro Suarez SJ
Andrius Tamulis
Carlos Vasco
Julio Vidaurrazaga
Pawel Walczak
Andrew Whitman SJ

Invited Colleagues 2009

Michael Ackerman, Bellarmine University
Jennifer Ackerman, Bellarmine University
Virginie Charette, Université de Sherbrooke
William Fenton, Bellarmine University
Michael McQuillan, IHES and University of Rome
Stephen Pitts, SJ, Loyola University, Chicago
Nelson Velandia, SJ, Javeriana University, Bogotá, Colombia

Clavius Community Notes

2009 UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Meeting #47: 27 June to 25 July

At the invitation of the University of Notre Dame and its Department of Mathematics, the Clavius group met for its forth-seventh annual session. Clavius was originally a group of Jesuit mathematicians, but now includes other religious and lay colleagues who are interested in sharing research and teaching of mathematics within a faith community. Members were provided with lecture rooms and work space in the Hayes-Healy building. We were housed in the Fischer Visiting Faculty apartments and the Hesburgh Center Visiting Faculty apartments. One of the units in Fischer was used to prepare and serve the meals. Another was used for Daily Mass and social hours. Several colleagues from the department participated in the seminars.

Seminars 2009

Working Seminar on the Relation between Physics and Mathematics

Participants: Andrew Whitman, Nelson Velandia, Julio Vidaurrazaga, John Lutts, Carlos Vasco, John Blanton
Topic: Curvature as treated in Chapter 8 of Theodore Frankel’s book, The Geometry of Physics, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition.

Differential Geometry Seminar

June 30, July 1, 2: Virginie Charette, Université de Sherbrooke, Flat affine Lorentz manifolds
July 2: Thomas Banchoff, Normal Euler classes for surfaces in 3- and 4- space
July 6, 7, 9, 10: Thomas Cecil, Introduction to isoparametric hypersurfaces in spheres
July 13, 14, 15: Patrick Ryan, Isoparametric hypersurfaces in complex projective space
July 14, 16: Maura Mast, Magnetic geodesics in Heisenberg manifolds
July 15: Julio Vidaurrazaga, Three types of Riemannian manifolds with non-negative curvature
July 21: Julio Vidaurrazaga, Examples of Riemannian manifolds with positive curvature
July 21: Thomas Banchoff, Self-linking and the normal Euler class with PowerPoint (joint work with Ockle Johnson, Keene State College)

Foliations Seminar

June 30: Larry Conlon, Geodesic laminations of surfaces and finite depth foliations
July 1, 2, 6: James Heitsch, Homotopy invariance of the leafwise harmonic signature for Riemannian foliations
July 1: Paul Schweitzer, Open Riemannian manifolds that cannot be leaves in codimension-1 foliations
July 6, 13: Paul Schweitzer, Asymptotic linking of R^k actions: extension of Arnold’s theory to higher dimensions

Special Topics Seminar

July 9: Nelson Velandia, Gravitomagnetic effects between a rotating mass body and orbiting spinning particles
July 9: Stephen Pitts, Loyola University, Chicago, Mathematics, Statistics, and Social Justice
July 14: Michael McQuillan, IHES and University of Rome, Categorical aspects of curvature
July 21: Joanne Snow, Memories of Marston Morse
July 23: Michael Ackerman, Bellarmine University, Group preferences under individual indecision (voting theory)
July 23: Kate Ponto, University of Notre Dame, Fixed points and traces

Mathematical Education Seminar

July 7: Thomas Banchoff, Internet-based topology teaching
July 13: Barbara Reynolds and Bill Fenton, Exploring transformations using Sketchpad
July 15: Thomas Banchoff, Barbara Reynolds, and Michael May, Teaching with technology — update
July 16: Michael May, Using GeoGebra to create applets for visualization and exploration in mathematics
July 23: Jennifer Ackerman, Bellarmine University, Math for liberal arts: reaching out to math-phobics everywhere

Special Events

July 2 – Faith Discussion on the new atheism, science and religion
July 4 – Shabbat Service at Temple Beth-El
July 10 – Faith Discussion on finding God in stories
July 14 – St Ignatius Feast
July 14 – Faith Discussion on the thought of Teilhard de Chardin