Clavius Activities at Notre Dame Summer of 2014

Clavius Group at Notre Dame in 2014

List of Clavius mathematicians

Jennifer Ackerman
Michael Ackerman
Tom Banchoff
Adam Bartoszek
Jacob Binoy SJ
John Blanton
Tom Cecil
Lawrence Conlon
Pedro Ferreira SJ
Margaret Freije
Richard Freije
Kathy Hall
James Heitsch
Michele Intermont
Ron Knill

Javier Leach SJ
Jack Lutts
Maura Mast
Michael May SJ
Sr Barbara Reynolds SDS
Patrick Ryan
Paul Schweitzer SJ
Dennis Snow
Joanne Snow
James Stasheff
Pedro Suarez SJ
Andrius Tamulis
Carlos Vasco
Nelson Velandia SJ
Julio Vidaurrazaga
Pawel Walczak

Invited Colleagues 2014

Chris Corbally SJ, Vatican Observatory, Tucson AZ
William Fenton, Bellarmine University, Louisville KY
Augustine Pamplany CST, Institute of Science and Religion, Cochin, India
Kuruvilla Pandikattu, Indian Institute of Science and Religion, Pure, India
John Shea SJ, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley and Creighton University
Lawrence Wargo, Calnet Inc., San Diego, CA

Clavius Community Notes

2014 Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
Meeting #52: 6 July to 27 July

At the invitation of Michael Gekhtman the Chair of the Department of Mathematics, the Clavius group held its fifty-second session at the University of Notre Dame from Sunday July 6th to Sunday July 27th in 2014. The Clavius Group was founded fifty-one years ago by a group of Jesuit Mathematicians. The group now includes other religious and lay colleagues who are interested in sharing research and teaching of mathematics within a Catholic faith community. Through the efforts of Prof. Gekhtman’s secretary, Patti Strauch, we were graciously provided with offices and lecture space in the Riley and the Hayes-Healy buildings. Each member was also provided access to email and the world-wide-web, Xerox and limited printing services. Moreover, thanks to Natalie Snider, the Site Manager for Bradley Company, we were all housed in the Fischer Graduate Student complex. The kitchen in one of the apartments was used to prepare and serve the evening meals. Daily mass was celebrated, usually in the chapel in the student center. Other apartments served as meeting places for social hours, business meetings and spiritual reflections. This arrangement made it possible for us to continue our vibrant community life. Participants consisted of three Jesuits priests, one nun, nine married couples, two without their spouses, three single laypersons and five children. The seminars were open to all who were interested and several colleagues from the department participated.

Seminars 2014

Working Seminar in Differential Geometry

Meetings were held at 9:30 AM on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from July 07 to July 24.
Text Used: S. Sternberg: Curvature in Mathematics and Physics, Dover, 2012
Participants: Julio Vidaurrázaga, John Lutts, John Blanton, Carlos Vasco, Ron Knill.
The work was an ongoing endeavor to understand the material. Most of the lecturing was done by Julio Vidaurrázaga and Carlos Vasco.

Differential Geometry Seminar

July 8, 10, 11: Maura Mast, The Geometry of two-step nilmanifolds
July 10: Thomas Banchoff, Icosahedra with congruent faces abstract
July 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 24: Thomas Cecil, Isoparametric hypersurfaces in spheres abstract

Foliations Seminar

July 15: Larry Conlon, C1 smoothability of finite depth foliations
July 18: James Heitsch, Revisiting Getzler’s proof of the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem
July 18: Paul Schweitzer, Existence of Reeb components in codimension one foliations

Special Topics Seminar

July 10: Ellen Ryan, Aging with spirit: Resilience, meaning and social participation
July 11: Michael Ackerman, Some Results on Facility Location Problems abstract
July 21: Carlos Vasco, A model-theoretic Philosophy of Mathematics I — The Philosophy abstract
July 21: Carlos Vasco, A model-theoretic Philosophy of Mathematics II — The Mathematics
July 23: Larry Taylor, University of Notre Dame, Exotic R^4’s

Clavius Symposium on Science and Religion
July 16 – 17, 2014

Symposium Talks: Abstracts and Speaker CV’s

Javier Leach SJ, Our scientific knowledge of action and technology and our knowledge of God’s action
Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ, Science-religion dialogue: Some mathematical and philosophical challenges and opportunities for today
Chris Corbally SJ, Natural hiddenness and God’s action in the world
Paul Schweitzer SJ, A report on the Wilton Park conference
Binoy Jacob SJ, Fuzzy language for God and religions
Oliver Putz, Divine concurrence as the transcendental cause of cosmic and biological evolution
Augustine Pamplany, Complexity and transcendence of matter — Neurobiological perspectives
John Shea SJ, Why did God create mosquitoes?

Other Special Events 2014

July 21, Kathleen Banchoff and Ellen Ryan led a session on writing legacy letters. Legacy letters articulate our values, history, stories, learning, and blessings for those we care about. Participants were invited to write a letter to a family member or non-family member – either a tribute to a person of an older generation or a letter passing on lessons learned to a younger person.

Clavius Activities at Holy Cross in 2023