Cmac1's Weblog

optional blog 2- Irene Hueter

cmac1 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:06:22 +0000

Irene Hueter was born on April 23, 1965 in Bern Switzerland. Like many other woman in math Irene was discouraged as a girl to learn math. The emphasis was instead put on things like learning how to sew (its so crazy that it was still like that as recently as the 60′s and 70′s!). Irene was smart though and she found ways around not being allowed to take the math courses like the boys…she would learn from her male friends and their notes and in exchange she would solve the problems that they didn’t know how to do. Even though most people discouraged her from pursuing math there were a few select teachers that kept her going, on in high school and one in college. Under the wing of prof. Henry Carnal she earned her PHD in 1992 at the age of 27. Soon after earning her PHD she came to the states (she knew how much easier it was here for woman in math ….at the time there were only two woman professors of math in all of switzerland) and has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Florida, and at Baruch College- City University of New York (where she is still teaching). Her focus in math is on statistics mainly. Irene loves finding statistics in our everyday world and although she is well aware of the bias towards woman in math she doesn’t see it as a big problem, she just works threw it.

optional blog 1- Danica McKellar

cmac1 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:39:47 +0000

Danica McKellar was born on January 3, 17975 in La Jolla California. She is most well known for her role on the Wonder Years (LOVE THAT SHOW!) as Winnie Cooper, but she’s no dumb actress. After the show ended she graduated Summa cum Laude from UCLA with a degree in mathematics ( so smart!) at 23. Following her completion of school she focussed on math. She proved a new math theorem and it was even partially named after her. I looked up The Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem but it was way over my head and i couldn’t find it in simple terms. She has also recently written two books ; “Math Doesn’t Suck” aimed at pre teen girls to try to raise their interest in math and “Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss” also aimed at pre teens. She is also still pursuing acting. Needless to say she is one very busy girl… another accomplishment of hers is that she is fluent in french. Danica is a great example of a modern day woman in math.

last class

cmac1 — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:16:53 +0000

so today was our final class. we wrapped up talking a bout three last mathematicians. sonya kovalevskaya (1850-1891), Grace Chrisholm Young (1868-1944), and Emmy Noether (1882-1935).

Sonya was born in moscow in 1850. She was the middle of three children. She was tutored and by 15 she had discovered calculus and physics. Later in life she married a friend because as a woman she was not allowed to travel unless she was married and she knew that she needed to go elsewhere to get a better education or job. After marriage she traveled to Germany, in berlin she was still not allowed to attend university but she found a professor who was so impressed by her work that he took her under his wing….his name was Weierstrass. with his guidance she wrote three papers by the age of 24, two were on math and one was on astronomy. After she received a PHD from Gottingen University based on her papers alone with out having to take any classes (must have been good papers!). After that she moved to sweeden in hopes of getting a job. Finally she found a teaching position at a university there where she eventually earned tenure. She also worked as an editor on a math magazine called Acta Mathematica. In 1888 at 38 she received the Prix Bordin Award for one of her latest papers. four years later she passed.

Grace was born in england in 1868. she was the youngest of three children and was very bright. After high school she wanted to study meedicine, but that was not an option for woman at the time (even though later in life she completed all the courses for pre med and just wasnt allowed to do her internship in a hospital). Instead she studdied womans studies at cambridge university before going to gottingen university to study math at 27. she was the first woman to go threw all the courses and receive a PHD from that university (sonya received a PHD from there years before but it was based on one of her papers not classes).After finishing her schooling she moved to switzerland with her husband and they worked together there on math. before her death she returned to england with her children.

Emmy was the most unlikely mathematician. She originally wanted to teach foreign languages, but she came from a math family (her father was a mathematician) and chose to pursue that instead. After high school she attended gottingen university (like sonya and grace) and got her degree but she received her PHD from another university in 1907. She had a hard time finding jobs but made great progress in abstract algebra. She died unexpectedly from complications from surgery at 53.

All three of these woman had very different lives but their love for math and their attendance at gottingen university connect them.

cryptography

cmac1 — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 01:30:27 +0000

in class we learned the proof that there are an infinite amount of prime numbers. The proof wasnt hard to understand once its explained what all the variables mean, but its still beyond me how someone could come up with something like that out of thin air… but anyway we then learned about modular arithmatic (remainder aritihmatic). after we got a quick lesson of explaining what it is we then looked at how it works with cryptography. cryptography is basically totally made up of moduar rithmatic. modular arithmatic is perfect for this use because it is really easy to un code if you have the key but if you dont its nearly impossible to the untrained person. these codes can be used during wars, or for secret agents or just in basic military life. cryptography is kinda hard to explain but basically each person has their own key to decode the same message and when the keys are unlocked both people get the same message except these keys are obviously not literally keys they are math problems…that was it i believe see everyone tomorrow!

11/18

cmac1 — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:34:48 +0000

today we reviewed what we went over last class( mercanne #s , mercanne primes, etc) then we were introduced to germane primes named aftre sophie germane who discovered them. they are a group of prime numbers that can be found using 2p+1. and that was pretty much it for class

class

cmac1 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:43:16 +0000

so i havent posted in a while…iv been so so busy! but to catch up we were introduced to sophie germane and maria gaetana ignesi, two mathematicians. sophia germane was born in 1776 to wealthy merchants. At that time people did not believe that woman should be educated, in fact it was seen as a negative if the woman was educated. Dispite this sophia was determined to learn and she would study the books in her library. Her parents even tried taking her clothes so that she couldnt leave bed to goto the library, but nothing stopped her. After being rejected from university because she was a woman she would take friends notes from her male friends in the class and would teach herself. She would also submit papers under a false male name . From there she would use the same male name and corrispond with mathematicians from all over. One of the main people she corrisponded with was mr gous. after a long friendship through letters he realized that she was infact a woman, this obviously shocked him. He wrote her a very long and flattering letter after he found out and was so impressed with all she had overcome and how smart she still was that he tried to get her and honorary diploma from the university he attended. Sophia studied vibrations, sand patterns, films, and number theories. she is known for the germane primes. In 1816 she won a math contest that lagitimized her as a mathematician. During the 1820′s she studied fermats therum and although she didnt solve it she made great deal of progress. At 55 she died of breast cancer.

Maria gaetana ignesi was born in 1718 in italy. She was 1 of 21 kids. her father was from a family of wealthy merchants, he was a mathematician/ philosopher. he encouraged his daughters talents and by age 9 she could speak several languages. She would be the entertainment at her fathers parties, reciting poetry and lectures in several languages. At 14 she took over the role of mom to her younger siblings. she tookon the role of teacher too when she schooled all of her brothers and sisters. in 1748 she published two volumes of books. from this the empress of austria gave her a job at the universitiy, but it is unclear what role she actually had at the university. in 1752 her father passed and after that she found it too painful to work in math. in 1759 she moved and started a homeless shelter with her new home. she died at 81 of heart failure.

finally today in class we worked with prime numbers , we went over the goldbachs conjecture and mersanne numbers and mersanne primes.

prof kim

cmac1 — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 18:15:05 +0000

today in class we had another sub. she was another prof here, and she was also a woman mathamatician. For most of the class she gave us her background, where she went to school etc. We found out that she grew up in korea and came here for her college education. she got her bachelors,then masters and finally her phd. She married and has three kids and is about to start teaching decoding and encoding.

class

cmac1 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:05:58 +0000

today we continued to talk about area. we all estimated the area of the room, then we took the area of a pizza crust, and finally we revisited the problem from our last class.

calc

cmac1 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:23:13 +0000

today we started learning about calculus. Calc is just the study of infinite numbers. We looked at area and how to find the area of irregular shapes. we concluded that you can draw simple shapes into the irregular shape to make it easier to find the area. The smaller the simple shapes that you draw are the more accurate your guess of area will be.

Diophantine equations

cmac1 — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:21:25 +0000

so today we learned about diophantine equations. They re equations that only involved real or natural numbers. They usually involve patterns like all equations. When i googled diophantine as a person nothing came up it was all just about his equations, which makes it clear what he is best known for.