Clavius Activities at Holy Cross Summer of 2010

Clavius group at Holy Cross in 2010

List of Clavius mathematicians

Jennifer Ackerman
Michael Ackerman
Tom Banchoff
Adam Bartoszek
John Blanton
Tom Cecil
Lawrence Conlon
Pedro Ferreira SJ
Margaret Freije
Richard Freije
Kathy Hall
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 2010

Javier Leach SJ, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Marisa Zemsky, College of the Holy Cross

Clavius Community Notes

2010 Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts
Meeting #48: 26 June to 24 July

At the invitation of the College of the Holy Cross and its Department of Mathematics, the Clavius group gathered at Holy Cross for its forty-eighth session. We were provided with two lecture rooms in Swords Hall for our seminars and talks and access to office space, photocopying, printing services, email and the web. As in 2006, we were housed in Williams Hall. This arrangement made it possible for us to continue our vibrant community life. The participants this summer consisted of seven Jesuits, one nun, ten married couples, and one other lay person. Twenty Clavius mathematicians participated in the lectures and seminars along with several faculty members from Holy Cross and other colleges and universities.

Faith Discussions 2010

July 6, Discussion based on the article by Andrew Whitman in the “The Heavens Proclaim:Astronomy and the Vatican”.
July 12, Meeting and discussion with Fr. John Piderit SJ, on Catholic culture at Catholic institutions of higher education.
July 18. Discussion on passing our faith on to our children and students.

Seminars 2010

Working Seminar on the Geometry of Physics

Participants: Andrew Whitman, Nelson Velandia, John Lutts, Pedro Suarez, John Blanton
Topic: Geodesics as treated in Theodore Frankel’s book, The Geometry of Physics, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition.

Differential Geometry Seminar

June 29, July 1, 2: Thomas Cecil, Isoparametric hypersurfaces
July 6. 8, 9, 12, 13, 16: Patrick Ryan, Isoparametric hypersurfaces in complex space forms
July 6, Thomas Banchoff, Self-linking, inflections, and normal Euler classes for polygons and polyhedra I
July 6, Ockle Johnson (Keene State College), Self-linking, inflections, and normal Euler classes for polygons and polyhedra II
July 15: Martin Magid (Wellesley College), Timelike Minimal Surfaces via the Split-Complex Numbers,
July 19: Pedro Suarez, Geometry of surfaces, a brief tour
July 20, Thomas Banchoff, Piecewise circular space curves

Mathematical Education Seminar

July 2: Thomas Banchoff, Michael May and Barbara Reynolds, Pedagogy meets Technology
July 21: Barbara Reynolds, Explorations in plane geometry with The Geometer’s Sketchpad (GSP 5)

Special Topics Seminar

July 1: Paul Schweitzer, Invariants of Legendrian knots in T3 and similar 3-manifolds
July 7: Michael Ackerman, Results on graphs of semigroups
July 8,: Gareth Roberts (Holy Cross), Cyclic central configurations in the four-body P\problem
July 12, 13: John Little (Holy Cross), A geometric view of continued fractions
July 13: Nelson Velandia, Particles in Schwarzschild coordinates and Eddington-Finkelstein Coordinates
July 15: Nelson Velandia, Space, time and gravity
July 15: Richard Freije, (Sun Life Company), The problem with the Internet
July 20: Paul Schweitzer, The structure of Reeb components : an elementary presentation with pictures
July 20: Javier Leach, SJ (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Mathematics and religion: our language of sign and symbol